An Alpha version of this mod has been released. See bottom of this post for links

This mod aims to add a completely new town to the DC area.


Screenshots:
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/15590-1-1294316449.jpg
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/15590-5-1294316272.jpg
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/15590-3-1294316271.jpg


Premise
Hightown is an old settlement, that has been built up over decades and decades in a sporadic series of spurts of building activity. The identity of the original builders and inhabitants has been lost long ago. Obviously the location was chosen by them for its ease of defence against the predators and dangers of the D.C. wasteland. In the years since it's founding the town has come to be slightly 'removed' from the affairs of the wastes, in contrast to others towns like Megaton, Rivet City, etc. A standard policy of 'shoot on sight' holds for guards on duty on the Underside, and this helps prevent too much rumor of it's existence from spreading.

The town itself is akin to towns like the Hub or Den in Fallouts 1 and 2. Fairly lawless, inhabited by a mix of good and bad people, scavengers, survivors, addicts, prosttutes, wastelanders, raiders and the like. They are loosely bound together by the 'elders' of the town, who still cling to the rules that held the town together in times long gone. The town is not open to all, only to those who earn a place in it's membership. Traders and visitors who know of it are allowed in, but must leave by sunset, or have a place to sleep.

The town survives how it can, which mostly means scavenging from the wastes, and drinking the polluted water of the region. Hightown has a dubious source of water, and a high defencible position, the two primary factors which ensure it's continued existence. The rules the town is still mostly run by also help to create a kind of community, though hardly one based on ideas of justice or morality. The laws of the wastes still hold sway in Hightown.

Factions exist within the walls and ramparts, and tensions are rife. A balance has been struck between those who care about others and about creating a place of refuge and decency, and between those who are ruled by their baser needs, and the satisfaction of those needs. Interaction with these groups will throw the Player into a complex web of moral choices. The route through could be difficult. Or brutally simple.

The Player will come into this setting and will be able to both interact with it, and effect it. Choices he or she makes will cause changes in the town, changes that will be reflected in it's appearance and makeup. Choices the player makes will effect the lives and fate of the citizens of Hightown. Choices the player makes could also resound beyond the walls of Hightown, and effect other places and peoples.


Goals
The goals of this mod are several:

1. To complete it. This means that something will be released, though the final product will depend on other factors.
2. To match the standards of Bethseda. I would like this mod to match or exceed the production values of Bethseda, to allow players to continue the immersion of their Vanilla game. This goal is high, but there is no reason not to set the goal there. Achieving it is another matter.
3. To make the mod accessible. Meaning no use of DLC content. Really, the mod as it stands doesn't need to make use of any DLC content. Vanilla resources suffice.
4. To allow others to Build upon the mod. One man or even a team can only do so much. Keeping the mod open, and simple, could allow other modders to build mods or quests based in or out of the town. Which would be something one would expect to do or find when dealing with a vanilla or DLC town.

Features
Thus far the mod contains:

• 19 residences/businesses in 19 separate cells
  
• 38 unique residents their dialogues and histories
  
• 120 customized objects using re-purposed vanilla textures
  
• One very large, very complex, mostly logical town superstructure
  
• A quest for gaining entry to the town
  
• Numerous mini-quests that effect the appearance and make up of the town

This mod is still a ways from complete. However, a lot has been done already.

• Background story
  
• Buildings are complete
  
• Cluttering is complete
  
• NavMesh is complete(!)
  
• NPC's have schedules, patrols, homes, etc.
  
• NPC backgrounds, stories and unique dialogues are complete
  
• More than 3500 lines of dialogue and conversation
  
• 12 mini Quests

What remains to be done? Well, to some degree what remains to be done is what most mods start with. And end with.

• Quests
  
• Voice Acting
  
• Bug hunting

I am building all the dialogues and quests. It appears I will be able to do those myself, as the GECK really does make things easy (when it is not crashing). Voice acting will come last of all or not at all, depending on the quality of work I can attract. I have a good start on volunteers so far however.

I have finished the bulk of what I wanted to do with Hightown. There is still lots of fine-tuning to be down, and this is part of the reason for releasing the Alpha. Hopefully I will get some useful bug reports that I can use to smooth out any rough edges that remain (and there are plenty)

One cautionary note. Because of the nature of this location, and the complexity/detail of Hightown itself, this mod will bring slower machines to their knees. Framerates are severely reduced in the town itself, owing to the sheer number of objects in a confined area. This is unavoidable, but measures have been taken to reduce this issue as much as possible.


HIGHTOWN ALPHA LINKS:

Here is a link to the Fallout3Nexus page: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15590

Here is a link to the Hightown page on moddb, which contains a few more screenshots and a download section for the Alpha
http://www.moddb.com/mods/hightown

Head to the north of the Temple of the Union to find Hightown.

looks awesome!!

A CQB nightmare :goodjob:

Indeed looks awesome

edit: Just clicked the link the the website, that looks awesome too :goodjob:

That requires great attention to detail, though even Bethesda lets errors through. Good luck.

Looks awesome!!!!! If you can complete this mod, it might just be the best FO3 mod ever!

I'm looking forward to play this one :goodjob:

It looks exactly like what the top deck of the Flying Dutchman is suppose to look like eventually... :blink:


..only this looks better than what I've come up with


Still, now I have inspiration




you don't mind inspiring me, do you? :unsure:

I sent you a PM, the length of the ideas were to large for a forum post, imo.

EDIT: Make sure to tell me whether the PM got to you or not, it error'd when I sent it but still made me wait to send a second one.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

@old_andy - Feel free to be inspired! Where would we be without it! In fact, once I release an .esp, feel free to rip it apart and use what you would like.

@The 3rd Type - Got your message, and liked the ideas. I think they would do well in this thread though. I am perfectly happy to hand off the background creation to those who like doing so and getting a healthy session of brainstorming going is what this thread could do.


If anyone else has ideas for the background, feel free to chime in. I am itching to work on it more, but I have somewhat halted, as I really need to decide what certain buildings might contain, be for, etc. before I build them.

I see Hightown being one of the earliest settlements in the Capital Wasteland. It's location makes it prime real estate in terms of defense and protection. Depending on the location of Hightown on the game world map, it could even be where Germantown's National Guard Troops got mired down on their search for supplies for the makeshift clinic set up at the Germantown Police Station. That could be how the town got its start.

Over the years, it just started attracting people. Unlike Rockopolis, however, Hightown has never been a priority target of Paradise Falls, mainly because the high altitude and overall lack of obstructions give Snipers wonderful fire lanes. As such, I also see Hightown hosting a chapter of the Temple of the Union and possibly even the Railroad.


As for its elusiveness to the Wasteland at large, again if you're dealing with people who arrived at Hightown to escape something (Slavers, Raiders, the Commonwealth, Enclave, whatever), they aren't going to be very welcoming to visitors. I almost could see a long and involved collection quest precursor which involves you delivering Purified Water to a sentry outside Hightown until you earn the right to visit the town proper (Kinda like the Outcast Collection Quest).

Water would be Hightown's biggest concern. You could probably shape entire quest chains around their need for Water, and I see the entire town under strict Water Rationing even in the best of times.

And with that one statement you just inspired a complete neighborhood on the Flying Dutchman:

"Cambragol"

Now I just need to figure out what it means...


Excuse me kind sir, but prey tell, what does cambragol mean?

Alright I'll just post the PM here.

~

I have some ideas for hightown.

I think it should inhabited by people who's ancestors came from a vault.

My take? Plenty of places in the CW that have remnants of outside society. But what about ancestors who lived in a real Vault that worked as advertised? I believe their was at least one in the DC area, it can be found in the Citadel Terminal. Fallout 1 and 2 had this with Shady Sands and NCR, they came from Vault 15.

Fallout 3 doesn't have this in any quality or quantity, your mod's got the quality, you can give the wasteland the quantity with hightown.

The history could be like this, I'll list it in list form

1: Vault Sealed
2: Area Around Vault is now habitable
3: Vault Opened
4: A large scouting party finds a perfect place in hightown's location for a wasteland HQ, to serve for field study
5: The Overseers Daughter and Wife are killed by raiders attacking, his Son leads the rest of the party to hunt them
6: Raiders are slain, the Overseers Son sends a messenger back to send word of his family's recent mortalities
7: Overseer is heartbroken, becomes distant
8: Son meets future wife
9: Son heads home for to finalize the final immigration to hightown, has solemn words with Overseer in his twilight
10: Overseer dies of age, the vault is stripped of everything of use and carry, final immigration begins
11: Son puts away Vault Suit in safe place, makes an honest woman of his love, now wife
12: They have a Son and a Daughter
13: Hightown experiments with Trade Route inclusion
14: Major raider attack, more raiders, but with lessons learned from the first, minimal casualties were had
15: Son (Now referred to has Sonny) learns of traders informing raiders of hightown's location
16: Sonny's Fraternal Twins reach 16
17: Sonny's Wife dies of unknown causes, foul play is suspect
18: Sonny's Daughter, Carol, disappears when leading a scouting party to find the trader whistleblowers
19: Sonny closes off hightown to the post-apocalyptic world, sending scouting parties to retrieve needed supplies
20: Sonny, leader of hightown, dies of old age, leaving his son, Allard to lead the town
21: By this time, most of Allard's generation are ignorant of their heritage
22: Raiders, this time, of a stranger variety. They are led by a even stranger female raider, they don't attack
23: They send a message: We are the Vault: We are Hightown!

24: It's at this time the player character is sent for by Allard to help the situation.

Sometimes I am accused of making comments that are negative when responding to threads honestly, although it is not my intent to discourage people from modding. The comments that I have quoted above reveal to me a lack of preparedness and commitment to the stated goals. You say that you want to meet or exceed the production values of Bethesda Softworks, but are thinking already of releasing it as a modder's resource. Bethesda could not announce a DLC with screenshots and then say, "Oh snap, too difficult. We are releasing this as an incomplete modder's resource instead."


I don't really know what to say about this bit, other than I think that it is wrong. These are not what most mods start with. What you have started with is what most mods start with, and the mods that are abandoned end with them. What "remains" is the meat of the project that make it workable and enjoyable and unique. When I started a town mod in an area very near where your is located I started with a background story and quest concepts. That gave me ideas for location, buildings and NPCs which I finished first, much like you have done, because they were the easiest things to do, not the hardest. Without a pre-planned plotline I would not have even have started, because I started a town in Oblivion that had a great location, buildings and NPCs but no compelling story and I eventually lost interest and never released it. Don't want to repeat the experience.


Not saying this to be harsh, but when someone says that they want to create mods that meet or exceed Bethesda's production standards but then say that they can't script, it seems equivalent to someone saying that they want to be a software developer but can't write code. If you have done what you have done already, then I would guess that you are capable of learning the scripting necessary to create scripts and quests. You must create quests in order to create dialogue in FO3. There are resources available to help you learn. Cipscis has some very helpful scripting tutorials, for instance.

The simple fact is it will take you to be the prime mover to make this project a reality, regardless of enthusiastic feedback you might receive. Someone has already told you that you have the potential of creating the best mod ever. That is very positive, supportive and enthusiastic but it is also true of a great many mods. They all have potential, it is the fulfillment of the potential that is the hard part.


Forget about that minimum of effort part or just give up right now and save yourself the trouble of doing a lot of work that leads to nothing. What you have described will take a lot of effort. Face it, commit to it, or forget it. I think that you have good enthusiasm for your project, have already done a lot of work, and have the ability to complete your project as you envision it but you need to be determined if you hope to finish. I estimate that you have about 80% of the effort ahead of you.

You have pretty much nailed everything I have imagined so far. The location is actually quite close to the Temple of the union, so not sure about hosting a chapter there. To help explain there absence from much of the goings-on of the waste we would have to assume the Hightowners are fairly Xenophobic, or at least like to keep to themselves. Which as you say lends to the idea of a long involved quest to simply gain access to the town.

About water...how does any town get their water? I believe Megatown has a purification facility of some kind? Perhaps something like that for Hightown. In anycase, I have added numerous storage tanks around the town. Following the 3rd Types' idea, perhaps the original facility was setup with some vault technology. Perhaps the power source as well. Which would nicely explain why the town survives and grows over the course decades/generations of inhabitants/elimination of inhabitants.

I had a fun time listing that timeline of ideas, I could add more if you'd like.

One thing thing I always thought was wrong with all the settlements in Fallout 3 is that none of them seem to be able to support themselves, most of them dont even have a water or food supply.
What do you have in terms of water and food?

I can suggest something: A field of brahmin and a water basin with a small purifier under the town on the ground, surrounded by walls. Accessible by ladders or stairs or something like ropes.

I'm not sure I like the Vault concept, to be honest. There's too many Vaults in the DC area as is without adding yet another one.


As for Water Purification in Hightown, Megaton's Water Purification Plant presumably tapped into an underground reserve that could then be purified. The same goes for the other major settlements of Tenpenny Tower and Rivet City. Canterbury Commons likely received it's water through the Trade Caravans, and Paradise Falls likely did the same - or they also had a on-site purifier. The other smaller settlements likely didn't have ready access to clean Water, probably due to their low populations and general rampant poverty. Arefu is probably the most successful "Little Town" due to its Brahmin Herds, which probably enabled them to buy water from the Caravans. Little Lamplight's Fungus enables the residents to drink the irradiated water without fear, as they'lre constantly purging the radiation from themselves. Greyditch was established to be a revolving door, where families settled temporarily and Girdershade can barely be considered a settlement...besides, the main drink there seems to be Nuka-Cola. The Raiders of Evergreen Mills probably don't care the water is irradiated, and Andale...well...there are other ways to get liquid to drink other then water.

I can't speculate as to why places like Oasis and the Temple of the Union survive without ready sources of clean water. Oasis especially.


But as to the point that this long winded post is eventually getting around to: Hightown's built on a stretch of Highway. That means Food and Water are going to be a constant problem for a settlement that wants to remain isolationist. If they did have a Purifier, that means they'd have pipes that would go down to the ground, and I doubt Hightown would like to give anybody a way to access the town if they could help it. Even putting up Walls around the Pipes on the ground is problematic, because frankly if you put up Walls - you've just announced to every raiding party in the Wastes that something of Interest is located there. And that becomes the weak link of the town. Hightown's built like a fortified castle ready to defend against sieges, but all it'd take is one Raider to knock out a Water Pipe to flush the residents completely out.

The Brahmin Herds and even minor crop production above ground isn't that much of a hassle. Just design one building to open up into a large, indoor Brahmin facility covered with those glowing green Cave Mushrooms. The Brahmin defecate, which in turn act as a fertilizer for the Mushrooms which the Brahmin in turn eat. The people of Hightown could also cultivate these mushrooms to supplement their diets.


But Water? Water would be harder to come by, and it'd be the perfect way for the Lone Wanderer to encounter and interact with their community, if he was willing to help their Water Crisis.

What about armored transports to Megaton, Rivet City, Project Purity etc. to buy water?

For example:

1 Armored transport:
2-3 Brahmin
5-7 Guards
2 Traders

The issue with water, and food, is interesting. I have not resolved it and am open to all suggestions.

Originally I imagined that they might actually farm on the freeway. The original settlers transported dirt onto the freeway, and setup some limited farming. I also imagined that the town would collect rainwater. Part of the reason for the design of the side armor (also for protection from below of course). However, I think we are all assuming, that in Vanilla Fallout at least, there is no rain?

I have kind of gone this way, and hence scrapped the farms idea. Then I imagined that Hightown would not be a town, so much as a gathering of scavengers. Everyone in the town makes frequent forays into the wastes for both food and water. Not unlike the Player. The only person who would not was the barkeep of the 'Radiation King'. Being a ghoul I am not sure of his dietary needs, and if he has any, perhaps he can trade for it via the services he provides (the bar). The scavenger population is somewhat transient, as they die off, and or get killed frequently. This could even lead to periods when the town was abandoned, and then later repopulated by a new gang or group of transients. At this point though, they sound a little raider like though.

Still, the scavenger idea isn't ideal. How long before the scavengers have to range further and further afield to get supplies?

Running transports as Ranger27 suggests is also an option. But that really integrates the town into the D.C. landscape, perhaps more than we want.

There is a small patch of groundwater near Hightown. So it is possible to run a pipe into the ground, and set up 'water purification' of some kind. That adds a very obvious Achilles heel to the town however, as GC Rust pointed out.

Also @The 3rd Type - feel free to add more ideas! The more the merrier.

@old_andy - Cambragol means 'cruel fist' I believe.

I like the scavenger idea, for one reason:
The brotherhood of steel and your dad always want to give water to the people of the wasteland, but where are they?
There's very little of them and they don't need that huge purifier. So this town just adds more wastelanders wich justifies their purposes much more.

I swear to you there was a "works as advertise vault" in the D.C. area.

Or maybe they migrated from off the boundaries of the map. I still say the idea is good, it doesn't have to be epic on the scale of Vault City or even NCR, but to see some success from a vault like that would be nice.

The citizens of Hightown (instead of scavengers):
What about Enclave Outcasts? Or simply Rangers (like Reilly's Rangers)?

Like RR, they explore the Wasteland in squads and search for valuable items and supplies. They're making maps of the Capital Wasteland and trade with other settlements. They also fight against all the Raiders and mutated animals. Basically, they're fighting the good fight.

Just wanted to say that the screens look amazing so far. Great work, and keep up the momentum!

I built a power generator and water purifier into the main building. I also attached an inconspicuous pipe running down from the central pillar, into the earth below. The assumption is that the town does have a supply, albeit small, of water. The quality of the water could be called into question too. I think the pipe has an excuse for being there, seeing as the entire underside of Hightown was designed for defence of the pillars of the highway structure. It doesn't take a great leap to also assume they defend the pipe. However, the pipe itself is unarmored. They would rather not draw attention to it. This weakness of the town could be used for quests. Also, I think there may need to be another reason besides the high defensibility of the town for people to be gathering and banding together there. A tentative supply of water could do that. Food is another matter. I am leaning towards scavenging being the mainstay. However, I have built some very long narrow rooms into the under structure of the bridge. I suppose they would be the perfect place for growing mushrooms.

Looks awezome keep up the work