There is no doubt in my mind that the main quests involving MW and Tribunal could have been better.

I won't claim to have played all of the MQ mods, but two specifically jump out at me as being quality work in one way or another: Darknut's Greater Dwemer Ruins, and Great House Dagoth. Unfortunately, these are not compatible with each other, and honestly Great House Dagoth has a lot of issues and limitations that it really shouldn't and/or could have been avoided. At any rate, these mods make the main quest experience much more full and "epic". This is the sort of thing Main Quest Enhanced would seek to do, filling in the gaps where lore suggests the possibility of such, but which are impossible in the vanilla game. What follows is an outline of what MQE would add to the game. You are free to incorporate any of these ideas into your own mods. While I would certainly like to, I can't say for sure whether I would ever end up developing these ideas myself.

1. On the divinity of the Man-Gods
a. Vivec and Almalexia
TES3 starts us off in a Morrowind where the the local man-gods known as the "Tribunal" are waning in power. They have been away from Lorkhan's heart for too long, and have lost two of the three tools needed to extract the power from the heart in ill-fated attempts to make it up the mountain. Yes, the Tribunal are weakend: Vivec alone powers the Ghostfence, a task that is becoming increasingly difficult for him.

While the Tribunal are weekend, I think it stands to reason that while the Heart of Lorkhan still beats, they are still divine enough to resist death. In the vanilla game, the player may kill Vivec at any point with any weapon he feels like just about. This never sat well with me. While the Heart is still intact (during the MQ), I believe Vivec and Almalexia should be unkillable except through the use of Trueflame. It seems as though in order to slay anything even close to a god, a special tool ought to be required. In the same vain, Vivec and Almalexia should have noticeable stat reductions after the Heart of Lorkhan is destroyed. If I recall correctly, in the vanilla game your inevitable battle with Almalexia is no easier even after her ties to the heart are severed completely.

b. Living Sotha Sil
How many people were disappointed to find Sotha Sil murdered towards the end of Tribunal? I certainly was. Sotha Sil should be a living character in-game at least up to a point, and the option to save him through a sub-quest line should have ALWAYS been available, truly one of the biggest letdowns in Trib. Just like the other two gods, he would have higher stats pre-MQ completion and lower stats post-MQ and while the Heart still beats, Trueflame would be required to kill him should the player decide to do so for whatever reason.

c. Defeating Dagoth Ur
Like the other heart divines, Dagoth Ur should be defeatable with Trueflame. The ramifications on the main quest would be the hardest part of this to implement: a lot of things would need to change post-MQ, which I will discuss in the next section

2. Alternative Endings
a. Return of the Tribunal
If the player defeats Dagoth Ur without destroying the Heart of Lorkhan (through the use of the god slaying Trueflame), he should have the option of allowing the Tribunal to rejuvenate themselves with the power of the Heart, which they had attempted to do countless times before the advent of the Nerevarine. In this case, Red Mountains post-MQ state would be the same.

b. Great House Dagoth
The player should be able to answer Dagoth Gares' invitation to join Great House Dagoth. Like in the mod Great House Dagoth, the 6th House would be treated as a joinable faction. The player character would be able to follow a full transformation from Corpus Stalker to Ash Vampire through Ur's guidance and council. If I were to develop these ideas myself, I would certainly attempt to contact the author of GHD and attempt to salvage the mod into something more usable for this project.

c. Lord Nerevarine, Heart Divine
The player should have always had the option of succumbing to the allure of becoming a heart-divine himself, with the option of becoming the highest Man-god worshiped by Morrowind's Temple. To fully flesh out and explore this option, the player should be given the option of having a city built for him (named Nerevar or Nerevarine, like the cities Vivec and Almalexia are named after their patrons), or the option of withdrawing into a dominion of their own devising (like Sotha Sil's Clockwork City) or possibly both. This option need not conflict with a or b: allowing the Tribunal to rejuvenate themselves would still be an option but not required; should the player join the 6th House or side with dagoth ur in the end rather than destroy him, the option for a city would be replaced with the option for a Citadel in Red Mountain, and the option for Temple faction tie-in would be replaced with an option of slaying the Tribunal, disabling Ghostfence, and spreading the blight across all of Vvardenfell.

3. Area Overhalls
a. Red Mountain
Red Mountain is the tallest mountain in all of Tamriel, but if I recall correctly, it is not even half the height that Morrowind can handle in it's engine. The entire region needs an overhall to bring it more into lore, the mountain needs to be much much taller. I also like Darknut's idea to put a tower on Dagoth Ur's citadel at Red Mountain's peek which to me is reminiscent of the Adamentine Tower, a very nice touch considering the Dwemer often sought to emulate the et'Ada.

b. Sotha Sil
The Clockwork City is but a small piece of Sotha Sil's domain as has always been hinted at. If the player should decide to do quests for the wizard-divine, it stands to reason that he should be allowed to explore the greater depths of Sotha Sil. "Sotha Sil" would be a massive interior in the style of the Clockwork City, populated with the various fabricants created by the least-known heart divine many of which I should think would be sapient.

-------------------------
And that's just about it, at least that is all I could remember from the things that keep popping into my head every so often. I'd very much like some feedback on this at the very least. Best case, I eventually feel ready to pick these ideas up and make something of them myself, but I hope for now it is an interesting read or perhaps an inspiring one.

I would especially like to know if I am terribly wrong about anything that would totally break one of the ideas presented.

To anybody who works on this mod: be prepared to invest long months of work. This is a big idea! But to the person or team that would do this, I offer full support as it is needed.

These are fantastic ideas, im surprised there aren't more alternative ending mods. I would love to help, but the CS doesnt like me

Bump

A lot of very good ideas here. The only part I disagree with is in the "join House Dagoth" bit -- I was never a fan of corprus transformation, just a personal taste thing. Any mod to address even a significant portion of these ideas would be impressive, indeed.

Sounds fantastic. :drool:

But yet another mod that gets me all hyped up, but crushes my soul that I'm not a capable modder in any way shape or form to actually help. :shakehead:

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

It would be a lot more optional than it is for Great House Dagoth, and the corpus transformation would be a lot less buggy. Seriously there is no reason for the transformation in GHD to have been so buggy and terrible, there are tons of similar transformation mods that aren't as bad.

Mostly though, if I were to develop this idea I'd use the story and change the scale of certain things. For example...

Beyond that, I would want to develop an Ash Vampire race that the player is changed into at the end of the quest line, as well as changing all of the current Ash Vampires into NPCs instead of creatures. I am actually really surprised there isn't already an Ash Vampire race.

I like your ideas, but some of them seem to result from a very mixed-up playing style, which leads to mixed-up logic sometimes (I think).

The most important thing to note here is that Tribunal is set AFTER the main quest. You're supposed to have played the game, then gotten the addon. Its story is full of direct consequences of the destruction of the Heart of Lorkhan - yes, they made it possible to play the addon before completion of the main quest, but the story really only makes sense if you completed the main quest. (Almalexia could kill Sotha Sil only after destruction of the heart.)

I'm saying this because that means Trueflame is NOT a godslaying weapon. There are no gods involved anymore in Tribunal. (You might say "hey, but Almalexia told me it was a godslayer!" and I wouldn't know because I can't remember all the stuff she said... you'll have to consider, however, that you were NEVER MEANT to kill Sotha Sil. Why would she give you a weapon that can kill gods, if you're not supposed to kill one?)

And it also means that the stats Almalexia has are supposed to be the ones she has AFTER the destruction of the heart... which makes sense, because while mortal, she still has centuries of training and experience inside her body.
Same goes for Vivec's stats... what you do after the main quest is up to you, but during the main quest, the devs regard him as a character the majority of players wouldn't kill, because they need him for the MQ. So that means that his stats are more likely the stats he should have AFTER the destruction, too.

I think if the divines had stats similar to those of Gaenor before the destruction of the heart, that would already be quite a cool effect. Also, maybe they could simply cast a very strong Calm/Command Humanoid spell on you if you try to attack them, making it impossible for the player to draw his weapon or ready his magic. When you meet a god, you should really feel like he's the one in control.

Sort of. I am quite aware that Tribunal is supposed to be played after the MQ but the fact is, it is possible to play it before and then, it doesn't make sense (like you stated). My ideas do bend lore slightly (by making trueflame a "god slayer" in it's entirety rather than just a really nice sword). I think the effects are TOTALLY worth it, though, by having multiple endings and by making Tribunal more integrated with the main game (instead of being such obvious "expansion content" as it is now, even with the assassin delay mods available).

As for Alma's and Vivec's stats, they would need to be rebalenced entirely, I don't think we'd keep any of the original values - they'd be much stronger pre-heart destruction and much weaker post-heart destruction than their vanilla stats, though of course any stats given to them would be based on their originals.

I am aware that Alma is supposed to be going crazy because of her lost link with the Heart. In fact, it makes NO sense for Sotha-Sil to be dead before the heart is destroyed. Alma simply does not have the motive really before then. Most of these ideas are really born out of the glaring flaws in game continuity introduced by Tribunal, to be honest.

I'm no lore buff, but how can you actually crash The Ministry of Truth? I always thought it was suspended there by Vivec's magic, and it was just a matter of time until it crashed like a doomsday meteor. Wasn't most of the region disintegrated after this impact? How can the player merely take some "damage" from a boiling ocean? This is an extinction level event, on a smaller scale.

Yeah, plus the impact causes the volcano to explode in the infernal city, according to lore you're destroying the whole game area and some of TR by letting that thing crash down on vivec.
You can go the GHD way about it, but that's always struck me as downplaying the meteor. If this is from a dagoth character kind of view, when you've got god magicz anything is possible though.



I agree that you shouldn't mess with how gods are killed in the game.
I'm no lore-expert either, but isn't the connection of the Tribunal with the heart of lorkhan kinda like a rechargeable battery, they had to visit the heart regularly with the tools and 'recharge' their divine spark?
When Dagoth Ur's goons stole the weapons the tribunal's power began to wane. Dagoth Ur on the other hand doesn't have to use the tools, he's stronger than the tribunal without wraithguard.
His connection with the heart seems more direct, making him pretty much invincible in the heart chamber, whereas the Tribunal will lose their divine power without the tools at hand, whether the heart stays or goes (they do retain some power after the heart is destroyed, vivec says as much at least, though it may be diminished slightly).

So surely it's not that much of a stretch that your character can kill a waning Tribunal member, yet not kill Dagoth Ur? The heart is like his achilles heel, it seems kinda strange to make him so much more vulnerable.
Instead make Ur a more interesting fight, maybe give him some scripted spells or something that makes him more dangerous and intimidating, so the player rushes for the heart?
About vivec, I'm pretty sure he says he can be killed. Like I said I'm no lore expert, this is all from memory tbh. Some of the ideas here are very good, just throwing in my two cents.

Yep, all good points there, Dirnae. Exploding volcano, what's that normally do for damage... like, 50-100 ?
This is an interesting idea, but I'm just not sure how many people will want to actually play with it.

I wonder how long you are going to run with that~

Anyway, as for "how" in game, probably with a script on the vivec cantons that causes them to disappear, and another scripted piece of "fake landscape" that acts as the impact crater, with bits of vivec still left from the blast.

As for keeping the meteor crash from being too underwhelming while still avoiding destroying half the game area, I am not sure how I would personally go about doing that story-wise. In the Infernal City, the meteor kinda crashes very suddenly with the full force of it's original velocity before Vivec stopped it. This is because the dunmer are using a device that harnesses souls similarly to how the Infernal City stays afloat to keep the Ministry of Truth from crashing. They are doing this because Vivec's magic has already failed and iirc, vivec himself is gone.

The climate during the events of TES3 are distinctly different. Any moon-falling would be player provoked, and Vivec would still be around. Very likely I would write it so as to suggest that Vivec's power failed gradually instead of "all at once" like the Machine does in the book, so that the moon would have far less velocity because Vivec would be pushing back the entire time.

By the way, probably going to edit the first post. I had a very illuminating discussion with Catharsis earlier and he seemed to think it would be better to use Kagrenac's tools to sever Dagoth Ur's connection with the heart, rather than killing him with trueflame. He's right. It would require some extended quests with Yagarn and probably some out-of-the-way stuff you have to bring to his attention first.

Put tons of animated mist statics or whatever all over to suggest boiling, make the damage taken HUGE. I mean, if you've got some incredible restore health enchantments and your character is badass enough, you could swim around, otherwise there's always dying a terrible death.

But I mean, what about lava? Molten rock does practically nothing in the vanilla game.

I was just thinking along the lines of realism. Just because you're head of the Fighters Guild, it doesn't mean you can dogpaddle while aquatic life is roasted alive during a cataclysmic event. And think of the falling debris, that's like cars raining down around you. And judging how easily Vivec and Almalexia can die by the hero's sword, I doubt even they could survive an apocalypse like this.

That's a fair point, but I think the damage is just supposed to simulate the intense heat from it. True, the MW and Oblivion lava damage wasn't quite high enough. You shouldn't be able to run around on it freely, unless it involved some enchantments/spells with powerful resisting effects.

Certainly. I was not imagining anything less.

At the point that the Ministry would be allowed to fall, the player would have already severed the Tribunal's ties to the heart completely somehow. Rather than use Trueflame as a plot device, it might be best to use something else, like an ancient text of some kind. Just, something that thoroughly explains how to use Kagranac's tools correctly. In the MQ, you're pretty much just told to use them wrong to mess stuff up, but with the right knowledge, it stands to reason that the player could sever anyone's ties to the heart and build his own. Obviously who you choose to screw over with this information will ultimately determine which ending you get.

Anything particularly wrong with my line of reasoning this time, guys?

Okay, sounds fine to me, then. I wasn't trying to push (too many) buttons, I was just trying to visualize the whole thing.
Carry on!

Regarding killing Vivec and Almalexia while they are "gods". I think of it this way: In lore, just how long did it take Dagoth Ur to regenerate his body after being killed? Quite a long time. Now, in the game, when you kill him, he regenerates in the heart room, instantly. Would it be safe to say that he regenerated quicker because his bond with the heart is stronger than ever? (For those who don't know what I'm getting at, I'll explain.)

If you kill Dagoth Ur, he'll regenerate in the heart chamber. Now, if you kill Vivec, he never regenerates. Why? Well, one could say it was a limitation of the game engine, another reason could be is that, if he were to regenerate, he'd be literally at the heart of the enemy (If regenerating takes you back to the heart chamber). Now, another reason that Vivec actually dies when you kill him when the heart is still functioning, is because the Tribunal's power is actually fading, even with the heart still active. Think of it, the Tribunal hasn't restored their powers in a whole era. They could still be alive, even after being killed, but its possible that the longer they go without the heart, the longer it takes for them to regenerate.

This is probably the exact reason why Dagoth Ur could simply regenerate in a few seconds when you kill him, because he is in direct control of the heart. This is probably why Vivec, Almalexia, or Sotha Sil, when they die, can't regenerate until a certain point.

Also, if you are to kill off a god, but still want the heart to be active (Assuming Dagoth Ur allows you to feed off its powers), You should kill them through the heart, by cutting off their connection. To make sure it works with the Tribunal main quest, just get a separate journal entry saying "I've killed the demi-god Almalexia, however, because the Heart of Lorkhan still remains, she may return", or if you haven't got the Morrowind MQ to a high enough point to know about the heart, it could say "I've killed the demi-god Almalexia, although, I have a strange feeling that she may not truly be dead."

Another thing, even if the Morrowind MQ wasn't complete, and you finished the Tribunal one, wouldn't it be safe to say that, even though the Heart is still active, because she is losing power from not bathing in the power of the heart, she may also be losing faith from her followers, contributing to her madness? Just a thought..

EDIT: Forgot to ask, how will the moon work with MGE, once it crashes? That always puzzled me with GHD, even though the moon crashed, from a distance, it was still there..

TL;DR: Read it.

Very excellent post, Masque. Quite aware of all of this. The whole implied disclaimer of this whole thread really is that I'd like to bend lore slightly to afford the player some awesome opportunities. As for the regeneration thing, this is something Catharsis and I discussed. He seemed to think it would be most tasteful if it took a couple of days to a week for members of the Tribunal to "regenerate", as they would be spawning in the heart of the enemy and then would need to escape.

As for the distant land bit, nothing I can do about that. Hopefully one day, our Distant Land will be a little less "static": it'd be nice to have the ghostfence disable after a point in the MQ, for example. But for now the only thing that could be done would be that I release an exceptions list that would allow you to generate distant land from after the crash once you do it with your character. Unfortunately not a whole lot you can do if you run more than one char. I actually have two separate distant land folders myself which I swap out, but it is not the best solution.

Like the sound of it hope someone picks it up.


For becoming a God dont know if its helpful but,
http://www.freewebs.com/jessmorrowindisland/morrowindplugins.htm

a link to The God Mod, might have scripts or something to give you an idea/easier time on how to make the PC a god, though i dont like the other weapon you need to use in it would be nice to hit it HtH since you have wraithguard on.


being able to finish Akulakhan would be nice. though i always wondered how he would get him out of there after he's done


http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8565
Antares Sotha Sil, cause you said you need him alive,

Another way you could handle becoming a god, is casting a certain spell (something like 'Kagrenac's Tuner') before or after stabbing the heart with keening. The reason i say that is this, taken from Vivec's Plan to Defeat Dagoth Ur:


My thought is that the "secret rituals" could be a spell that would tune your substance to the heart's tone, allowing them to imprint on you and make you a god. That could be a less-lore-bending way to go about it than to create an extra tool to use on the heart, like the God Mod did.

Not a bad idea, Epididamus. Certainly better than bending lore by adding a 3rd tool.

Wait what? I don't remember The Mad God adding a third tool, unless you mean the Heart Ring?

I think they meant the third tool was added by the God Mod. MadGod did not add a third tool in Great House Dagoth.

This sounds like a great mod idea. Good luck on it

source => http://lagbt.wiwiland.net/wikibiblio/index.php/%C3%88re#Quatri.C3.A8me_Ere according to the book http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Infernal-City/dp/0345508017/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284347233&sr=1-3, which is recognized by Bethesda as official history.


Translated =>