Modeller Wanted http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1070503
Eternal Darkness A journey into madness.



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I. Introduction

I was working on this mod about 2 years ago, but quit Oblivion before it was finished. But now, I'm back at it!

Eternal Darkness is loosely based on a video game by the same title released for the Gamecube in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Darkness). The main concept behind the game was that your character had a "sanity meter" which increased and decreased as you encountered monsters throughout the storyline. As your sanity decreased, you would begin to hallucinate and eventually die.

Now, although the appearance of undead creatures in Oblivion is actually pretty commonplace, I always felt that fighting a Necromancer should have been much more difficult... and scary. Most of the time, undead summons could be ignored while you focused on eliminating the superior threat, the Necromancer. The aim of this mod is to make those Necromancers much more intimidating (or more accurately, their summons), while also adding a bit of fun to the game.

The mod will work this way: While in combat, it will count how many undead are within a given radius, and decrease your sanity accordingly. You only lose sanity while in combat, so if you manage to sneak by that Skeleton, or run and hide from him during combat, you're safe.. for now. You can regain your sanity while in combat only if there are no undead, and you always regain sanity outside of combat. Watch your sanity, as you will descend into the three stages of Dementia if you're not careful.

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II. Int, Will, and You

Your Intelligence and Willpower have a large impact on your resilience to the undead. Big dumb Orcs, this could be bad for you. However, this also means that Fortify Int/Will potions and spells will be much more useful while you go spelunking. Allow me to explain...

-Intelligence: This reflects your character's ability to rationalize what he/she is seeing, and whether it is a hallucination or reality. Therefor, a higher Intelligence will allow you to recover sanity at a faster rate. In the game, sanity is recovered at a very slow rate. Often, you'll be suffering the effects of Dementia even while you're shopping for a new sword hours after you leave a Necromancer's dwelling. Carrying potions/spells to buff Int will help you recover faster.

-Willpower: This reflects your character's mental fortitude. Although he/she may be terrified of those undead charging toward them, they will push the fear to the back of their mind. This results in a slower loss of sanity around the undead. Sanity is lost much faster than it is recovered, so in this losing battle, Willpower is your friend. Be sure to buff it up before you open that door.

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III. Dementia!

When your sanity dips below a certain number, you will enter the first of three stages of Dementia. You can see if you have been effected by Dementia by checking your Active Effects page of your journal... but, you'll probably know when it happens! Here's a short overview of the stages and some planned effects for them (but not all effects):

Stage I: A minor stage, with some SFX and light visual FX.
- Blood on walls and ceilings
- Sound effects like scratching, yelling, growling, door knocking..
- Creatures/NPCs disappearing momentarily
- Blurry vision
- Floating objects

Stage II: Stage with heaviest visual effects.
- More blood.. hehe
- Loss of control
- Loss of vision
- Demonic apparitions
- Frenzied states

Stage III: Light visual effects, mostly loss of health, stats, etc.
- Damage
- Permanent, damaging apparitions
- Bloodshot eyes
- Blinking lights
- Powerful demonic voices
- Collapse/Loss of movement
- Draining of stats
- and, eventually, death


This is not a full list! There's plenty of secret things I have planned

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IV. Progress

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Scripted detection of undead [check!]
Created 3 stages of Dementia [check!]
Effects for stage 1 scripted [check!]
Effects for stage 2 scripted [check!]
Effects for stage 3 scripted [in progress]
Prepare for Beta release [not started]

Seems good, I will keep an eye on it

Just a lil' update..
Got 2 new effects completed for stage 1 Dementia

This sounds really interesting. Have you considered making it more general, down the road, to serve as an all-purpose sanity system with toggle-able options for when sanity loss should occur? (Eg. Any encounter with undead, in combat or not; stumbling across dead bodies; watching your companions being hacked to pieces before your eyes; magical curses and diseases; new illusion spells that damage sanity, etc.) I've actually considered implementing something like this for my own mod, which is a very, very dark fantasy but my work-load hasn't given me time to give it any serious thought. I considered implementing it as a 'stress meter', like a health bar or fatigue bar that recovers very slowly after the initial shock and that grows as the player rises in level (to represent seasoning). I'm a big fan of Lovecraft and would love to see something like this working for the Oblivion engine.

Eternal Darkness is a cool game. :thumbsup:

Idea: If you hit the third level of dementia, you don't completely recover. Like, for instance, the bloodshot eyes never go away once you hit the third level.

Maybe you could take a page out of F.E.A.R.'s book and use a creepy-ass girl as one of the "permanent, damaging apparitions." Little kids laughing always adds to a creepy factor, as well.

Also: You could use an audio editor, so that, once you hit the second stage, all sounds get "G-majored," or raised by a diminished fifth (6 semitones, if you're going to use Audacity)

I have indeed considered this, and I've gotten myself quite worked up about the possibilities... But of course, that wouldn't be implemented until Eternal Darkness reaches a 'near-final' release.



I'm not sure the players of Oblivion would be pleased with permanent effects (when I say 'Bloodshot eyes' I don't just mean appearance, I mean your view will be tinted red). This may be implemented if I expand the mod as stated above, and include NPC healers or healing potions which remove the effects of Dementia. But that's farther down the road.

As for the girl, I would love to do something like that, but I'm no modeller. I've planned on using default models for now... Maybe in future releases I can add this. I believe TNR adds 'child' NPCs (right?), or perhaps I'll ask a modeller for help. I DO plan on using creepy child voices, though

EDIT: Btw... welcome to the forums!

Ooh, screen tint? Nice, but yeah, it would get irritating.

Come to think of it, I could do the G-majoring for you if you want. It's pretty simple if you know music theory. The dilemma would be choosing to shift it up or down. Up is more like "They're Coming To Take Me Away" but down is more like some kind of circus run by cannibalistic clowns.

Plus it would get me listed in credits.

Why does this sound like a good reason, why you get "chosen" to be in the shivering isles? At least you'd fit the bill perfectly by being completely insane.

Yeah, that is a good idea. It would probably break the Door in Niben Bay quest, though.

Still working on this (and, making great progress)!

Learning as I go, however.. having trouble calling up dialogue. I'd like the player to use some of the dialogue under the 'assault' topic, but it looks like there are some conditions that need to be met. I tried getting rid of all the conditions in the CS, but it still checks some stuff. Anyone good with dialogue? I'm a bit lost.

On the up-side, visual effects are going swimmingly. I'm putting another notch in the progress bar

my suggestion:
dont [censored] with the existing topics...make your own assault topic with its own conditions

OH GOD YES!
I love that game so hard in the pants, my friend. So very hard.
I always wondered what other game could do sanity damage well enough to make me say "Not bad". In fact, I know of only two games that have sanity, one being Eternal Darkness, and the other being Call of Chuthulu, but what I have come to know about it's sanity effects is that it doesn't do the idea justice.
The sanity effects in ED were super hawtness(in my opinion), even though I didn't get the vast majority of them(the console reset confusion ones were the coolest sounding of the ones I didn't see).
I found the one where you enter a room and you suddenly explode after a little bit to be one of the most fun ones(I rarely see that one coming).
But, that sort of sanity effect will be the toughest to make, I'm guessing. Other then upside-down rooms with no door on your side, I mean.

I've written a couple of novels myself implementing disturbing psychological scenarios, mainly because I used to work as a janitor in a psych ward and heard all sorts of crazy sh** the other jans told me about the patients. Sanity issues in movies and games are way cooler than the ones in real life for sure, but believe me they're not as creepy. Playing a nightmare is never going to be the same as living it. Anyway to make it short I just wanted to share some of the creepiest sanity based reality distortions scenarios out there (adapted for oblivion of course):

Note: The text in red is optional as it is severely disturbing

-When entering a door you get transported to the prison where the game started and find a skeleton that has your name. If you attempt to loot it, it will reanimate.
Shrieking, cheap scare music when it reanimates

- You're paralyzed and something horrifying is approaching at an eternally slow pace, you only regain perception of reality immediately before the entity assaults you.
Lock the camera in 1st person, followed by high pitched untuned violins and 30 second duration of approach. The entity damages you and has a chance of killing you depending on sanity

-When you wake up you are surrounded by 10 zombies which do no damage

-When you wake up there is no one to be found anywhere
disable music, everyone is dead

-After you kill everyone in a dungeon all the bodies turn into dead impersonations of your PC
disable music, dead bodies are NPC children

During the insanity scenes, the players might seek salvation due to their cowardice by pausing the game either by inventory, console or menu. FORBID THIS! If its possible script it so that not even the keys on their keyboard respond for the duration of the effect.

Well, hope this helped and good luck with you mod!

Heh, that reminds me of the controller unplugged sanity effect. You enter a room, there are tons of foes, yet it says the controller is unplugged, and the game continues so you can watch the player get mauled by hoards of zombies(or what ever they were called), before it flashes back to the door you were about to go through and your character screams "THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!". Disable player controls will lock the player out of the menus(other then the escape menu, oddly enough), but other then that, there's nothing the player can do but wait for their fate.

Oh, you'll likely need COBL for the death detection(and a patch for Wrye Shivering Death, for semi-obvious reasons), but other then that, I don't think anything else is needed for death detection. Maybe OBSE, though. Not sure.
If you find a way to make a way for the players head to pop off and let you talk it it(invisible head mesh and whatnot), it must quote Shakespeare(to be, or not to be. That is the question.) for semi-obvious reasons(unless you've got a decent quote to tell yourself through your own decapitated head, with someone elses voice, I might add).

Why not implement these creatures in this mod?
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22925

Nice and bloody, pulpy and stuff, great for insanity scenes.

These are decent, anyone know any other 'scary' creature resources?

Bump

and, changed the progress-o-meter

;)

Just a little update (and, also to get more people to notice )

I'm making good progress.. working on some of the harder visual effects. It's exhausting on my noodle However, I'm confident I can do it!

I'd still love to hear more suggestions, and if anyone knows of a good mod (or perhaps you're a good modeller) that has more gorey creatures.. lemme know!

Ah, good, this sounds like a great new way of combat if you can pull it off!

I think the physical damage might be a bit overkill, since I don't think someone will be able to fend of a horde of undead when unable to remain control of their body, the damage will follow accordingly.

The Priest's Gates to Aesgard has some truly spooky creatures and moments, you should try it out(if you haven't already), see what he did.

Will think some more on it, but will go to bed first. Far too late.
Good luck!:)

This is true, so long as the player is in a dungeon. I plan for the effects of dementia to last much longer than just the duration of one dungeon.. you'll likely be in town while suffering dementia. Therefor, the physical damage represents the player tearing/clawing at their own flesh, convulsing, bleeding out, hitting objects, etc (the 3rd stage is severly violent). I agree that perhaps death may be a bit much, but if the physical damage continues and the player doesn't cure the dementia, death would surely be inevitable. Perhaps I'll just tone the damage down a bit.

I appreciate your input

I really like this mod, it's a good idea. I'd suggest modifying the dungeons so they're not just scarier for the actual character in-game, but for the person playing. A change of music perhaps, something darker than that of Oblivion's default. Make them darker, harder to see in, not too dark, but dark enough to make you think "Is that a skeleton by the wall or am I just imagining things?". I'd like to see that put in as well, making the dungeons a truly fearful experience and making you think twice about venturing within their darkened halls...

No, I wouldn't really change anything in the dungeons, for compatibility's sake. There's plenty of other mods that make the dungeons scarier. And it really isn't necessary, because if your effects are really well made, they would be scary enough by themselves.

If they're in town, make it so sometimes an inanimate object will start a conversation with them.

Maybe they're standing in a store and some book starts talking to the player. Something along those lines.

Or have an NPC start talking to the player about the player's murderous tendencies (the people he killed in the dungeon or whatever). Then when the player character tries to argue with him the NPC responds with confusion because he never actually spoke to the player character. You can even take this a step further if you add quests later by having someone try to drive the player character insane by talking to the player character (PC) then pretending he didn't say anything once the player responds.

Even better if you can eventually implement some sort of guilt into it. Maybe the PC thinks he killed an innocent (or actually did) and is feeling guilty. So the PC can eventually get overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and maybe start refusing to attack or draw a weapon. (also plays in well with the quest idea above where someone is trying to drive the pc insane)

I'd try to play with doubt a lot in general. Make the PC doubt that certain things are actually there or doubt himself or what he is doing.

Another example: PC ends up fighting a lot of monsters that look like normal people until he gets close then they jump him. After he leaves that area, have an NPC that looks exactly like those monsters did when they looked like normal people approach the PC at the town gate or something. Whether or not the PC ends up jumping the gun and assaulting an innocent or the NPC is actually a monster is up in the air.

Yeah, I'm not touching anything in the gameworld. Besides, there's a mod called Darker Dungeons or Darker Caves... something like that.



A lot of the effects are "doubt" related.. ie something happens for about 15 seconds, then everything instantly snaps back to normal and no one seems to notice anything went wrong in the first place, and the PC (you) are left wondering "Did that really just happen, or did I imagine that?"
On another note, I'm not sure you can start conversations with objects. I'd be interested to look into it, though.

Still going strong :foodndrink: