» Wed Jul 03, 2013 7:52 am http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1459403-relz-helgen-reborn/
Welcome to Helgen Reborn
by Mike Hancho/Balok
Nexus Page: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/35841/?
INTRODUCTION
From the author of Fallout: New Vegas' 3rd most endorsed quest mod of all time, comes my most ambitious adventure yet! Simply put, Helgen Reborn is THE definitive quest mod for rebuilding Helgen! Learn the legend of The Keepers of Hattu as you reunite two old soldiers and are thrust into a decades old feud with a ruthless and powerful Justiciar from the Aldmeri Dominion. Recruit and train your own town guard or ask for protection from the Empire or Stormcloaks. From uncovering an underground slavery ring, to fighting for your life in exciting battles in a secret new arena, many other adventures await as the workers rebuild the town step by step! You'll be rewarded with your own private tower in Helgen which includes the most interactive and dynamic display museum in Skyrim!
If you enjoyed other Mike Hancho (aka Balok) mods, you will be blown away by Helgen Reborn as this is my biggest project yet, and has been in development for nearly a year! And of course Helgen Reborn sets the same quality standards for a quest mod that you've grown to expect from a Mike Hancho project!
FEATURES
- Fully voiced with 20 of the best actors in the community
- Easily 4 to 6 hours of game play (that is a VERY conservative estimate)
- Three new sets of armor
- Mike Hancho's meticulous attention to detail
- Great story and characters
- Private Tower player home and Interactive display room that transforms as you play the game
- HUGE cavern to display stuffed creatures
- Completely transforms Helgen into a vibrant community
- Multiple faction options for the town (Independent, Stormcloak or Imperial)
REVIEWS
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/30/mod-of-the-week-helgen-reborn-for-skyrim/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iao18UxKVmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fJ9ZZ8BjcxQ
GETTING STARTED
First of all before you install this mod and start your game with it loaded, make a NEW hard save. You should save often with not only this mod, but any mod. (See rant below)
Install manually by placing Helgen Reborn.esp and Helgen Reborn.bsa in your games Data folder (recommended). Or install with Nexus Mod Manager. New users should install the Version 104 full package. If you've already completed the quests with an earlier version you may want to use V104 for the added function of having Cienna as a teammate.
If you are starting a new character it is HIGHLY recommended that you leave Helgen Reborn UNCHECKED until you exit the cave with Hadvar/Ralof. Make a NEW hard save right there and load my plugin. It's fine if it is installed, just uncheck it in your plugin list until you exit the cave. The reason for this is if you try to start a new game from the main menu with my mod loaded it may place you standing by the cart you're supposed to be in. This is caused by a bug whereby editing the navmesh in Helgen causes the cart ride to fail. Since I cannot have a new town without finalizing the namnesh to link the teleports for my new shops, this issue is unavoidable.
If you're using Live Another Life and choose the vanilla Helgen path, everything should run as intended, but I recommend you read and follow my suggestions in the Helgen Reborn Guide.
While you can certainly play at any level, I'd say around level 20ish is a good sweet spot for a great combat experience. If you're a level 80 character with maxed out skills and perks, nothing in the game is going to be very challenging. Also, if you have any level character where you've installed and uninstalled a lot of scripted mods, you're eventually going to have trouble with your save whether you run my mod or not. Missing scripts cause errors and will eventually corrupt your save, so I recommend using as clean a save as possible. This applies not only to Helgen Reborn, but any scripted mod.
With Version 103 and up, about 10 seconds after you load the game with my mod installed your journal should update with a new quest. Just follow instructions from there.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION!
I've honestly been astounded at the number of players who don't save. Rule number ONE with any Bethesda game is save, save, save, especially if you're using mods! I usually don't go more than 30 minutes or so without saving, and I ALWAYS save before initiating dialog with an active quest target. I learned this the hard way after I lost an entire character in Fallout 3 that I had literally been playing for weeks. So neglect to save only as much time as you're willing to lose. I'm NOT responsible for any loss of your character or your time!
But before you speak to Marcus in my quest, I suggest you make sure the bandits that take over Helgen are enabled and in place. These bandits are enabled 4 days after the quest "Unbound" has been completed, but you must enter Whiterun to enable them. You will know for sure they are enabled by checking the gates leading into Helgen and if you have the spikes with the bloody body parts on them, you're good to go! If you do not, I suggest you wait somewhere for 4 days, then enter Whiterun through the main gate, NOT by fast traveling, then go back to Helgen to make sure they're enabled. If you've killed them before and they haven't respawned that's OK. As long as you have the bloody spikes you're fine.
This mod is 100% compatible with Alternate Start - Live Another life, but again, there are a couple of things I highly suggest you do before speaking to Marcus. As with the vanilla start above, I suggest you make sure the bandits are at the fort. In addition to the bandits, I suggest you run through the keep to make absolutely certain that the 2nd rock collapse added by Arthmoor has been disabled. It should disable when the bandits show up, but I suggest you verify it first hand. So follow Arthmoor's procedure for resetting the vanilla quest, check the fort to be sure you have bandits, and check the keep for the rubble pile and you should be good to go!
As for any other Alternate Start type mods, generally as long as they set everything to the condition it would be in a vanilla start after Helgen is destroyed, you're probably good to go. But again, the suggestion about the bandits above apply to everything whether vanilla or Alt start.
These steps are recommended due to the way Bethesda set up these events in the vanilla game. They are also necessary to remove the rubble blocking the hallway in the keep that was added by LAL.
If the Quick Start Quest somehow fails, you can start the quest with the console by putting in: setstage BalokHelgen01 5
FAQ
Q - Which version should I be using?
A - All users should be using V104 Final.
Q - I crash whenever I do ___________.
A - Probably a load order issue or something specific to your save game, installed, or worse, uninstalled mods, or rig. Nothing of this sort has been widely reported, so I have to assume it's specific to your setup. Standard mod troubleshooting applies.
Q - I crash when I get near the Thalmor Prison.
A - If you're using "The Cyrodiil Frontier - Fight Against the Thalmor II" they are not presently compatible. In V103, I have done everything I can do on my end. I have also tried to contact MadFrenchie, but it appears they have abandoned their mod. Some people have said they were able to fast travel to the Thalmor Checkpoint and walk over to the prison from there, so you may want to give that a try if you're getting CTD's.
Q - My follower acts funny in certain spots in Helgen.
A - That is a navmesh issue where the developers used a series of island navmeshes between the area in front of the inn, around to the front of town. Wherever there were rubble piles there is no navmesh, and everything I tried to do to move the islands and rebuild the navmesh resulted in errors. So I had to leave the vanilla navmesh pretty much alone and work around what they left me to work with.
Q - Somebody won't talk to me, but my journal clearly tells me to speak to them.
A - They're possibly stuck in a scene. Make a save right there and reload. You can also try waiting for 1 hour, saving and reloading. Others have said that exiting the game and reloading works, while others have just gone and done something else for an hour or two and they were fine when they returned.
I made every effort to use a stop on every stage a scene sets when it updates, but it seems they still hang up sometimes.
Q - I have a rubble pile blocking the hall that leads from the room where you get the potions in the vanilla game down to the torture room.
A - This rubble is added by Alt Start - Live Another Life and how to prevent this from happening is well documented in my "Important Information" section above, as well as in the Helgen Reborn Guide you receive in V103 and later. But since you failed to read or follow my simple instructions, you'll have to disable the rubble with the console. Go up to the rubble, open the console and click on the rubble pile and type in MarkForDelete and hit enter. Make a new hard save and reload, and it should go away.
Q - I'm taking the guards out on missions and I didn't get a quest pointer for my guards mission.
A - If your guard is Herd, the target is probably in Solstheim if you have the Dragonborn DLC. Check there and just consider it part of the adventure! These are all randomly generated by the Radiant Quest system which is out of my hands after I tell it what to look for. If it is not in Solstheim, your target is already dead or invisible or the death of the target does not update the objective, use the console to advance the stage. (See guide below for your quest.)
RADIANT QUEST STAGES
I advise you not to play with these too much because you can really screw things up if you do something wrong. And as always, make a hard save before ever using a console command. If you cannot advance past the "Go kill the bad guy" stage whether you didn't get a quest pointer, or the target boss has already been killed or killing him does not update the quest use the following:
SetStage BalokRadiantXX 30 (XX would be the rest of the quest name for your guard's quest below)
In this example, this would be for the quest with Wanan-Dun. Look at the others below and figure out what guard you're on and set that guard's quest to stage 30. All of them are stage 30
INDEPENDENT GUARDS
Wanan Dun - BalokRadiant01
Joto - BalokRadiant02
Herd - BalokRadiant03
Orianthi - BalokRadiant04
Sorian - BalokRadiant05
Kindrick - BalokRadiant06
IMPERIAL GUARDS
Surus - BalokRadiant01Empire
Cidius - BalokRadiant02Empire
Herd - BalokRadiant03Empire
Josslin - BalokRadiant04Empire
Ciel - BalokRadiant05Empire
Miles - BalokRadiant06Empire
STORMCLOAK GUARDS
Toralf - BalokRadiant01Stormcloak
Savard - BalokRadiant02Stormcloak
Herd - BalokRadiant03Stormcloak
Kar - BalokRadiant04Stormcloak
Viggun - BalokRadiant05Stormcloak
Alof - BalokRadiant06Stormcloak
UPDATES
Version 104 FINAL released 6-29-13
I'm confident V104 is working properly and is officially out of the beta release. The final version contains all of the updates below along with a few other very minor tweaks. The final version has all the missing voice files for Cienna.
The most significant "new" feature will be adding follower/teammate functionality for Cienna. After you complete a certain quest, she will be recruit-able as a teammate. Her packages will be pretty basic, but will include your standard "follow" package, a "wait here" package, a sandbox package, a dismiss package, and you'll be able to tell her to change into her custom Keepers of Hattu armor, or wear casual clothes. I've also added a Misc quest marker on her, so if the player forgets where she is she can easily be located.
The other significant change is that I've added a separate marked quest for when you rescue Korst called "Molon Labe" The reason I did this is so I could add pointers to each of the guards you have to kill so hopefully the people have said they couldn't find all the guards will be able to now. And, if there are in fact guards who did not enable (unlikely) it might help me troubleshoot easier. (You will be able to turn the quest off if you don't want pointers on the guards.)
There are NUMEROUS minor tweaks to how my scenes update quest stages. I'm doing my best to do everything within my control to reduce or eliminate the issues where it seems scenes get stuck in their final action phase, even though it has updated the quest. In theory, this shouldn't be happening the way scenes are designed, but it is in fact happening. But hopefully the tweaks will help that, and the way I've re-worked some of them, it will definitely help me troubleshoot.
I've also added a sign pointing to the passage that leads to the blue room and one pointing to the cage area, as well as a more descriptive journal entry (which nobody will read) telling you to go through the passage to get to the blue room. I've also set the doors as unlocked because it seems to be confusing to too many people who don't pay attention to what Goreu tells them to do and they jump down into the pit. So, I have a sign pointing them where to go, Goreu telling them where to go, and the journal telling them where to go. If they still can't find it, it's not my fault if you know what I mean. The only thing I didn't add is bright, flashing, neon lights and a yellow brick road leading them to the blue room. But I know people will still ignore all that stuff, but at least I did what I could, lol.
I've also given my trigger at Orphans Tear Mine a new name so even if it is baked into a users save from an earlier version, the new trigger will still work.
Other minor stuff: Added variables for Patsy so he won't repeat requests to create animals he's already made.
Added collision barriers in the fight cave so that a fighter won't fly up into the gallery if he is Fus-Ro-Dah'd just right.
Also changed gamblers relationship rank to player and fighter so that if they are hit with a shout or spell by accident they won't go hostile on the player or fighter. And this should also ensure that the fighter won't go hostile on the gamblers as well, lol.
Added a condition to the draugr radiant quest that excludes The Pale as a viable location. This should eliminate Dimhollow Crypt as a possible quest target. Also added a condition for the bandit radiant quest to prevent Solstheim from filling as possible a location.
UNINSTALLATION
As with the Official DLC, and any other scripted mod, uninstalling this mod is not recommended or supported and may cause problems if removed. (If the town has been completed, you'll have a barren, empty town.)
CREDITS
I would like to thank everyone who helped me along the way in building this project including my amazing cast of actors, texture artists, beta testers, those who submitted screen shots for my oil paintings and anyone else who helped answer my multitude of questions at the Official Bethesda Forums. Is to each of you that this project is dedicated. I'd also like to thank JimReapa at the Bethesda forums for your help early on in sending me all the links to resources, bouncing ideas around together and writing the note you wrote. If I missed anyone, please let me know as it wasn't on purpose.
CAST
Marcus - Ben Britton
Valerius - River Kanoff
Korst - Mauri Majanoja
Aerandil - Dante de Glanvill
Wiglaf - Daniel Hodge
Maenen, Patsy, Gaenor - Nicanor K. Delacruz Romero
Diana, Cienna, Gamblers - McKenna Swanson
Joto, Shadrick Oaken-Heart - Mike Quinlan
Wanan-Dun, Rolund - Johannes Envall
Sorian, Ciel, Viggun, Gambler - Rich Heller
Herd - Julian Shanahan
Kindrick, Alof, Miles - Matt Laughlin
Orianthi, Josslin, Kar - Christine Slagman
Reinhardt - Rory Keane
Oronar - Aidan Schneider
Halindil - Craig Morton
Goreu - Matthew Simmons
Balfring - Mike Hancho
Falco, Gamblers - tauntedflail
Gamblers - Pippa Winslow, Mike Hancho
Misc voices - Mike Hancho
TEXTURES
vipermkii
Hanaisse
Plangkye
Porscha
TESTERS
DreamKing
Locksley
Ysne58
olympus1483
Avilyn
Cheeka
angusthemagi
vipermkii
Laufknoten2
SCREEN SHOTS
Alexander J. Velicky
Nimbli Bimbli
dj2005
Cogstar
Locksley
Arthmoor
Hanaisse
Please take time to endorse if you like the mod, and don't hesitate to contact me in the comments thread. Enjoy!
MH
