[WIP] The Dwemer Society

Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:01 am

Yesterday I finished my seventh quest. I'm quite proud of that, since it include homemade objects from Nifscope (even if it's only scaled and retextures ornate dwemer goblets). It's the fourth quest for the artifact collector running the museum, and I have found the the generel idea for his quests: they can be solved in severel ways, and you reward depends on how you solve them. If solved in the optimal way, you will eventually get a full set of dwemer armor + weapons. You also have a rival for these, who will get most of the honour, if you don't solve them the best possible way.

Today I started make detailed notes for the excavation of the dwemer ruin. To give a preview, of how the excavation will be, here are my notes so far.

The archeologists quests:

1. The archeologist presents himself in Ald Dwermia.
2. The secretary asks the PC to go to Maar Gan and se, if the archeologist has found anything interesting.
3. In Maar Gan: "Caspar Milel" "Yes, I saw a Redguard matching that description very recently, a fiercely looking man, who said, he was archeologist. I heard him saying, that he would head straight north to search for dwemer stuff"
4. North of Maar Gan the PC finds Caspar Mirel, who is stsnding in front of a partly buried dwemer door, along with three Aragonians, who are miners. "It's good to see PCName, have you come to check my progress" New topic(My progress): I'm glad to see you right now, since I've just found this excing found along with my helpers. You should return to Marcus with the good news" New Topic(my helpers):"These are my helpers: Animis, Ranidir and Look-for-stuff. They are not scholar-material, but they are honest, hardworking creatures, who has helped me before. Martiz the dunmer keep control of the more formal stuff. He's a scholar."
5. The secretary asks the PC to check on Caspar Mirel's progress. "Master would like an update on Caspar Mirels progress, so I would like you to speak with him again. I believe, that you should talk to Zarnatheron before you leave"
6. Zarnatheron: When you wisit the excavation site, I would like you to bring this stone to Caspars assistent, Martiz, It's a teleport-stone, which will allow me to set up a teleport to the site and spare you a lot of travelling in the future. Martiz is skilled in mysticism, so it shouldn't be a problem for him to set it up."
7. On the excavation-site, there is now placed an ashlandertent surrounding the entrance. Caspar (My progress): As you can see, we have set a tent up surrounding the excavation. With imperials, redorans and ruin robbers running around we would like to attract unwanted attention. We have opened cleared the entrance, and I would to show you, what we have found so far. But first, I believe, that you have something for Martiz"
8. Martiz: "Yes, I have heard, that Zarnatheron has managed to create a teleportstone, and with that, I should be apple to create a connection to Ald Dwermia" You give him the rock.
9. The PC enter the ruin, which starts as a long rather dark corridor filled with many kegs etc, a few sections inside, the hallway is blocked by rocks. Caspar "As you can see, we have encountered a problem, and the rocks are too hard for my diggers, so if you could help us remove it, it would be a big help. I know you are an ressourceful PCRace, so maybe you can even find something here to help you"
10. The PC fins a satchel in a keg and blow up the rock. Caspar "I knew I could count on you, there are still rocks blocking the way, but you have cleared the hard rock, so my helpers should have no trouble clearing the rest. You should go back to Ald Dwermia and inform on my progress. By the way, in the future, when you go here, I would like you have some skills in lockpicking. I have a feeling, that it will be needed sometimes here"
11. Outside the tunnel, the teleport is now set up. Martiz: "I have set the teleport up now, so I can teleport you back to Ald Dwermia" .
12. You are teleported back to Zarnatheron. "Martiz has set the teleport up now. Good work for both you and Martiz, I hope Caspar is progressing nicely as well.
13. Report to the secretary.
14. The secretary asks you to check on Caspars progress. You are teleported to the tent from Zarnatheron.
15. In the tent, only Martiz is present. Martiz: "Just enter the ruin, I'm sure Caspar will be glad to see you.
16. Inside the ruin the rocks has been cleared, and you walk for a little while until you find Caspar and the diggers standing next to a door (lvl 40). Caspar "I have some trouble with this quite difficult lock, maybe you can help". The PC unlocks the door, and they enter a rectangular room, with a door, which has a note hanging next to it, with the text "Welcome to Nilfingh. He who will enter must put together the dwemer king". On the floor is the dwemer puzzle.


This is only a fraction of the excavation, which also will feature the art of creating new armor, finding a flooded dwemer mine, severel dwemers and hopefully more puzzles. I have a thread about the puzzle mentioned above by the way.
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Sophh
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:06 pm

Sounds great!!!!

If your still looking for Resources to use i dug these up:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7358

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7355

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7346

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=119915&id=6614

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6958

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11257

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=1234

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2043
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Amanda savory
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:28 pm

This is very interesting; it reminds me of a very old Dwemer mod I played years ago. You might want to check it out;
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=1530
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Dragonz Dancer
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:44 am

Great links MidgetAllen. There are definately some stuff there, which I can use. I especially love the alchemy set, and some of the other things like the shaft and platform might give new ideas for my ruin.
I couldn't download your staves from fileplant, where I kept getting an error message though.

Fragonard> I have never heard about that mod before. But when I read the first lines, it sounded like my own mod. I'm a little surprised, that all that could be included in a 200kb file
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T. tacks Rims
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:42 pm

Fragonard> I have never heard about that mod before. But when I read the first lines, it sounded like my own mod. I'm a little surprised, that all that could be included in a 200kb file

Yes, the author made very good use of stock resources. That was normal back then when broadband wasn't that common and modders were a little less sophisticated about custom graphics.

BTW, I hope my mentioning that mod doesn't discourage you. Your concept looks great to me and will bring the general idea into modern times.
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GEo LIme
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:07 am

I'm not going to make a lot of custom-stuff myself, but I will use the ressources, which I can find (MidgetAllen f.ex linked to a few very interesting mods), and I'm my mod already will be much larger in terms of filesize. I should perhaps try playing that mod (there are a few other mods like DGR I ought to play soon as well).

I'm not in any way discouraged by the mod, so don't worry. I hope that the amount and quality of quests and dialogues is so high, that it by itself makes the Mod worthwhile to play by. And then I have high hopes for my new dwemer ruin, if I manage to implement all of my ideas. These hopes also got a little higher because of Midgetallens links. :)
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jason worrell
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:23 pm

I'm still making progress on the dwemer society. But the last week, I have mostly made and remade scripts and topics related to the secretary of the dwemer society, who has a lot of topics which activates all kinds of thing in the ruin including promtions of the members, new items for the enchanter and new quests, which I want done in an intilligent way. That has taken a lot of thought.
But I have also started on the excavation, where I have designed the puzzle room now. I'm not if the design is good enough though, since the PC don't have an optimal view of the pieces. I also need to script it (and obviously reorder the pieces).
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot15.jpg

I haven't heard much from the guy, who offered help on my ruin, so it seems, that I will make the ruin by myself.

Since I have mostly made dialogue and is mostly using standard meshes, I don't have any amazing screenshots, but I have taken a few screenshots:

http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot0.jpg
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot13.jpg
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot12.jpg
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot11.jpg
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot7.jpg
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot5.jpg

So far, I have around 10 quests and 230 dialogue entries, but that's probably less than a third, of what I will make.
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Kate Murrell
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:12 pm

.... I hope that the amount and quality of quests and dialogues is so high, that it by itself makes the Mod worthwhile to play by. ....
I agree with you about quest and dialogue content, one of the several reasons that I am very much looking forward to this mod.
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victoria gillis
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:19 pm

I agree with you about quest and dialogue content, one of the several reasons that I am very much looking forward to this mod.

I will do my best not to dissapoint you.

I have encountered a minor setback in my excavated ruin though. I wanted to use the vertical shaft ressources, which MidgetAllen linked to, and I included it in my design. But now I realize, that they are made to fit the Morrowind dwemer meshes, while I use the Tribunal dwemer meshes, which I believe isn't compatible, so I'm not quite sure about, how to solve this problem. I should be apple to change the texture, but since a dwemer mesh consist of both the floor and roof (and for most of the parts a wall), in different heights, I can't solve the problem by resizing, which really is all I can do in NifScope. If anybody would like to make it for me, it would be appreciated... otherwise, I will have to improvise.
I'm also having some issues with collision, which isn't in sync with the mesh, but hopefully, I can't solve them myself.
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Bethany Watkin
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:08 am

I have finally finished the script for my dwemer puzzle. It is 337 lines, and is by far the most difficult, which I have done yet, but I like the result. After a few adjustments, my puzzleroom looks like this:
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot20.jpg

I have also since last update made two quests: an interview a dwemer spectre and a treasurehunt in Arkngthand with a bit of history included.

I'm also writing a book called "Dwemer ruins of Vvardenfall", which will describe all known, and a few unknown dwemer ruins.
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Kahli St Dennis
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:21 am

Time for an update on my Dwemer society:

Due to the good weather in the spring in Denmark, I haven't been as active lately on this mod, as I was in the beginning. But I'm still progressing. Since last time, I have added a quest, where you deal with runaway spiders in the swamp.
I now have 12quests and most of fourth stage on my excavation of the ruin (I should add a few more screenshots soon).

Mostly I've been working on my new ruin, where I have primarily have been building of my flooded mine, which I think looks good.

But besides that, I have learned how to make Morrowind movies, so here is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GldrPBpK-w8&feature=channel_page

I have looked at some of the current WIP's on this site, and found two interesting things, I would like to add for my Mod. Melchior Dahrk's dwemer armor would be nice for my new dwemer armor and even better, if he created a dwemer construct from it. MidgetAllen dwemer mech would be perfect as a mining dwemer construct, but waiting for community ressources is maybe not a great strategy, since you never know, when they are finished.
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glot
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:08 pm

Thanks Skeli. I'm quite proud of my dwemerpuzzle. It's by far the most advanced thing, I've made so far.

I haven't been that busy since last update, since the sunny spring is luring me outside. But I'm still working on this.
I have added two new quests: a pickup quest with a few choices, and one involving my longest book so far (30 pages), and then I'm almost done with fourth stage of my excavation.

Here is a few screenshots from Nilfingh. Nothing extraordinary, but I'm satisfied with it.

http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot23.jpg
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot25.jpg
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot26.jpg
http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/ScreenShot31.jpg


I'm learning blender at the moment, but not very fast, since the interface looks quite complicated, and modelling is not really a priority of mine, so the learning curve is quite steep.

Next thing for me is making the flooded mine work and creating the dwemer refuge, where you can visit and talk to dwemer spectres.

I have also a speculating on a few minor things:
What ligthning is used for a dwemer mine? Normal mines use just torches, but it doesn't look dwemer, and it would be a problem for a flooded mine (maybe the lightning will only be turned on, when the mine is drained). So I haven't decided on the light within the mine.
Another thing is quest rewards from the historian. He is an enchanter by trade, so I figured he should give useful enchanted things as rewards. But they shouldn't too powerful (at least not the early rewards). I have found four rewards, but two of them are too bad, so I really only have a teleportring with three destinations, and an levitation amulet. So what else could be good rewards?
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katie TWAVA
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:03 am

I would think that they would use the normal Dwemer lighting if the mine was somewhat established, i.e., not a new mine when the Dwemer end occurred.

sieboldii
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Haley Cooper
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:36 am

Not sure this would fit (actually I'm pretty sure it won't) but Craigor made a http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=3721. http://www.freewebs.com/craigors_morrowind/Screenshots/dwelampost00.jpg. I'm sure someone did a version of the standard coil light that was broken, but I can't find it at the moment.
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Emmi Coolahan
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:09 am

I would think that they would use the normal Dwemer lighting if the mine was somewhat established, i.e., not a new mine when the Dwemer end occurred.

sieboldii

The dwemer mine is quite established, so the lightning shouldn't be makeshift. But the mine is made of lavarock, where ordinary normal lights might seem wrong. The lamppost also seem more like a streetlight in an established area, but might be useful. I found some lightcrystals in DGR, which might be useful. I've also thought about the light has a lightswitch, in that case the light should be artificial in some way.
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loste juliana
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:27 pm

The dwemer Puzzle is neat - can see lots of hours have been put into this :) Some of your dialogue quoted in post#26 needs a little editing for spelling but you may have fixed that up by now. Looks like I might need to make a tomb raider costume for my character to play this mod :)
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Lawrence Armijo
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:12 pm

Thanks for the praise :)

The dialogue was just a sketch I made before implementing it, so there has been some changes and spelling corrections. I spend a lot of time looking at and correcting the spelling, but since I'm not a native english speaker, I have undoubtable overlooked some (I think I have about 300 lines of dialogue so far). I hope to find beta testers when I'm done to look for that as well as balancing and bugs.
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Elizabeth Lysons
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:07 pm

As to spelling and grammar: Wrye Mash has an option to export and import dialogue. You could export your dialogue then load the resultant text file into Open Office Writer with the LanguageTool extension loaded (Writer includes spell checking and Language Tool adds a grammar check). Set the document's language as English and correct the errors it suggests, although there'll be a quite a lot from the CS IDs. Finally, use Mash to reimport the dialogue.
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Ownie Zuliana
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:37 am

Since other ambitious dwemer mods are now in the works (Julian K Spire's greater dwemer ruins and Iio's dwemer faction), I think it's about time, that I told that this mod is still alive.
I had a few months of from this mod, but now I have resumed my work on it, although I will not spend so much time modding as when I started this.

Since last update, I have finished three quests and done some interior modding.

The quests are 'The dwemer refugium' http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot35.jpg

The spectres are unique with stories to tell you.
The dvilem armor, which takes you to the flooded mine to drain and find materials for the unknown dvilem armor, if you know how to create it.
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot45.jpg

I'm quite satisfied with these two quests, which has both taken a lot of time to do, but are probably my best so far. The third quest is a simple one.
The last quest is just a small one.
I have also worked on the interior of Nilfingh, which is appearently also found by others:
http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv1/forslund72/?action=view¤t=ScreenShot40.jpg


I have probably finished 17 quests, which is probably around 60% of my quests now, and I'm now thinking about the next quests which include a large and interesting ancestral tomb, where you will fight the leader of the ruin robbers, if you can survive long enough to find him. But that is still in the concept fase.

When I look at other mods, I must admit that my mod graphically looks rather simple, since I can't make new meshes, so I just have standard meshes and donations, but I don't think, that I'll be spending time learning to make new meshes, since I don't find it that interesting.


Edit: Pictures should be working now.
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Maeva
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:11 pm

Today I downloaded princess Stompers ring of levelling, so I better could test my progress ingame.
It's a quite practical device, since my testcharacter was lvl1 redguard spent most of his time down on the floor while figthting orcs, while a lvl 20 redguard did much better.
So I played through the artifacts collectors questline after making my seventh quest for him (19 quest overall), and I like what I'm seing so far, where I'm also trying to add some twists to the quests. The latest quest took me to Mzuleft (the ruin south of Dagon Fel crawling with orcs), and I hope it's not too dangerous to send anyone to that ruin since those orcs are quite nasty.

Playing a lvl20 also gave me my first oppertunity to test my levelled lists, which so far looks good, except for one thing: there is too many dwemer archers. In one ruin I fought at least four of them, which is ridiculus overkill.

So how do I make some creatures in a levelled list rarer than other?
Also some ruin robbers have less than brilliant AI, but I probably have to live with that.
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james tait
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:27 pm

When I look at other mods, I must admit that my mod graphically looks rather simple, since I can't make new meshes, so I just have standard meshes and donations, but I don't think, that I'll be spending time learning to make new meshes, since I don't find it that interesting.


Have you seen the excellent meshes in the GDR resource? I've used a lot of those and I have to say it really adds a lot of depth to the Dwemer look. But don't worry too much, graphics aren't everything :). Your quests sound great!
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sarah simon-rogaume
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:31 am

Have you seen the excellent meshes in the GDR resource? I've used a lot of those and I have to say it really adds a lot of depth to the Dwemer look. But don't worry too much, graphics aren't everything :). Your quests sound great!

Yes I have been looking at the ressources, and I borrowed a few weapons, keys and the minecart, but I didn't use the interiors, since I already had decided on and partially build my ruins, when I found the GDR ressources.
I have used the tribunal meshes for my large ruin for variety and since it's supposed to be the greatest ruin in Vvardenfall.
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Patrick Gordon
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:09 pm

I have an idea, if you want to make an addon for TR. Deep within Kemel-ze, the dwemer society has a central base, which was set up to counter the thievery of the archeological society which took objects from the ruins, and sent them to Cyrodil. The dwemer society hates this, and they recruit you to be their weapon to shut the archeologists down forever.
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GLOW...
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:35 pm

I have an idea, if you want to make an addon for TR. Deep within Kemel-ze, the dwemer society has a central base, which was set up to counter the thievery of the archeological society which took objects from the ruins, and sent them to Cyrodil. The dwemer society hates this, and they recruit you to be their weapon to shut the archeologists down forever.


I haven't seen Kemel-ze yet, but I have heard, that it a quite magnificent ruin, and I have touched most ruins in Vvardenfall at least to some degree.

But I dont want to make my mod dependant on anything but Morrowind and the two expansions. Especially TR since it's huge and incompatible with severel mods.


I just noticed now, that you said addon. That might be possible and could be nice, if someone want to make it, but I expect to take a break from soloprojects after this (I have already spend +200 hours on this).
I also have a few other ideas, which will not be part of the mod, but could be added later.
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Reven Lord
 
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Post » Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:04 pm

I haven't done much work on the dwemer society recently. I want to work on it, and have both ideas and enough time to at least do some work.
But I'm limited by the fact, that I don't know how to do everything.
My puzzleroom has been waiting to be finished for a long time, but I never managed to create cubes with correct collision.
I also don't know how to make convincing frozen dwemers, they should probably be placed in a cold chamber (cryochamber) and maybe placed inside ice like the skeletons in the Solsteim tombs, but my skills isn't up to that.
I have also been promised a few dwemer creatures, but it seems the modders there have abandoned their work, so I'm not sure, if there will be more new creatures added.

I guess, that learning to use Blender could solve some of my problems, but I have found that working solo has it's limitations, when I can't do everything myself.

I need to find a way to solve the issues above, since they are stalling two of my questlines. If nothing else, I will make simpler solutions for it, eventhough I hate to compromize and haven't done so far in the mod.

So not a lot of progress to report, except, that I have remade a giant dungeon (borrowed from tombs expanded) where the head of the ruin robbers lives, which will be used for a quest for the artifact collector.
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!beef
 
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