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Planet Oblivion Modular Projects

presents

The Other Spheres Basemodule:
Prelude

by Elim Garak

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Release Version V1.1


Introducing the POMP-Label, TOS:Prelude is the first episode and base module of the hopefully upcoming TOS-series.
To learn more about the POMP concept, please consult the Modders Readme (Warning: contains Spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJSp7QMRYyA (new Version with complete Voice actors list)
http://www.planetoblivion.de/images/stories/tos/prelude%20poster_e.jpg

http://www.planetoblivion.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1341&Itemid=73
http://www.planetoblivion.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1340&Itemid=72

What's this about?
A well known foreign power sets foot in Cyrodiil to study the Oblivon crisis. The first to encounter this power is an old mushroom vendor, who has set up a market stand in the IC Market District.



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Voices:


In alphabetical order by role name:

Air Spirit...................................................................... Gandalf
Argonian Slave (f)..........................................Jade Dunkelstein
Argonian Slave (m)............................Bengt "Cutty" Haarbrandt
Benefacius Corem...........................Wolfgang Lennard Prokoph
Blackwood Company Members.................................Elim Garak
Bruma Guards...................................................Andra Ghariael
Citizens of Cheydinhal (f)..............................Jade Dunkelstein
Citizens of Cheydinhal (m)................................Andra Ghariael
Commander Solfyr..........................Wolfgang Lennard Prokoph
Cordan Tarani...............................................................Lars D.
Dervera Romalen..........................................Jade Dunkelstein
Eilonwy ................................................................... Lunaya
Falanu Hlaalu.............................................................Gandalf
Fenaran Res..................................Wolfgang Lennard Prokoph
Freezing Fryndir......................................................Frostpfote
Guards.............................................Bengt "Cutty" Haarbrandt
Heborar Sarethi...................................................Willy-Wonka
Heregil Theras.....................................................Martin Sabel
Hloran Venim.......................................................Martin Sabel
Hlorar Aspath............................................Peter "Nightred" Bail
Irdana Ardrethi...................................Sophie "Rhia"Herrmanns
Itching Inges....................................Ramona "Renni" Helmrich
Llunela Hleran..............................Janine "Angry Elven" Dalisda
Mara...............................................Ramona "Renni" Helmrich
Master Daedreyon..................................................Elim Garak
Mervan Agaricus...............................................................TBA
Otumeel................................................................Elim Garak
Rethas Seloth..................................................Andra Ghariael
Solyn Darenthy............................................................Lars D.
Starving Sordra..........................................................Gandalf
Ulene Hlervu................................................Jade Dunkelstein

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Please note:


The following original Characters need to live to complete the Plugin:
* Falanu Hlaalu
* Eilonwy (Cheydinhal Mages Guild)
* Dervera Romalen
* Borba Gra Uzgash

The following Characters make it easier when still alive:
* Ulene Hlervu
* Otumeel

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Incompitabilities

We know of the following problems with other Mods - please report if you find further incompitabilities. Major Problems will make quests unsolvable. Nuissances and unlogical behavior are considered minor problems.

Major Problems

* Open Cities - Conflicts with changes to Leyawiin, Cheydinhal and Skingrad

Minor Problems

* Cobl - "Invocation of Azura" is a Daggerfall Book included in cobl, but the cobl version won't solve the quest. Additional problems with Lore Ingredients might occur.
* Planet Oblivion Easter Surprise - Saffron from Easter Surprise can't be given to Solyn Darenthy
* Martigen's Monster Mod - More Wilderness Life - Places a monster spawnpoint partly inside a new building
* TFF Races may cause distorted hands of the female argonian slaves - no idea why, since the slaves only wear Vanilla Clothing.
* Kvatch Aftermath alters the area behind Hame. But since the roots from Prelude and the stairs from Aftermath both make the cliff climbable, you can use either.

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Resource policy:

Please contact me via garak@code-garak.de about the use of graphical resources.

Voice Resources stay property of the Voice Actors. Most can be contacted via the Planet Oblivion Speakers Market, Frostpfote can be contacted directly via me.

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Ressources used:

The Indelicates: New Art Theme. Taken from their marvelous Album American Demo - thanks for permission, Julia!
Brillo: Giant Collup Mesh/Texture (originally developed for Morrowind, Converted via NIBLE)
Alien Slof: minor parts of Armor Meshes.
Mayang Free Textures: Various Materials
Imageafter.com: Various Materials


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Programs used:

Gmax
Milkshape
The Gimp with DDS-Plugin, Normal Map Plugin
Swiftgear Stereogram Maker
Nible
TESGecko
Tes4Trans
Rad Video Tools
Virtual Dub
Fraps
Magix Video Deluxe 2005
Inno Setup
PatchWise Free
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Additional thanks:

Lilith and ElMarinero for Beta Testing (English edition)
Lilith for correcting my typos and other catastrophes

Ryan, Lord_Bresor and AL-D for Beta Testing (German edition)

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Patch V1.1 (about 4.5 MB) brings mostly minor Bugfixes and should work fine with older savegames.

• Fixed a texture-adressing problem in Bonemold Greaves and Dres Helmet ground meshes
  
• Fixed an issue with the faction icons when middle or small texture size is active
  
• Added a cooling chest to Solyn's Kitchen
  
• Added minor regeneration to Hendrill's Brothers to keep them from permanent knockout
  
• Fixed a rare issue with Giant Parsnip effect. If it still gets stuck on you for any reason, talk to Otumeel, the poison dialog topic will remove the effects.
  
• German Edition only: fixed some typos and english artefacts.

looks great, downloading right now...

Well hot damn! This looks great. ^_^

Thanks, and downloading now!

This looks great and I like the trailer

Got a question: does the majority of the opponents level with the player or is it set to a static level?
Voice work sounds great by the way!

Hi, it states conflict with open cities, CHeydinhal amongst others. Will this conflict with 'Better Cities'?

Coors916 :ninja:

well, it's not too much about fighting, but yeah, whenever you have to fight, the opponents are scaled.







not sure. in Cheydinhal, one NPC has to be able to reach the backside of the inn. besides that, you might see some oddly placed bedrolls, nothing dramatic. Open cities is much more of a severe change compared to most city redesigns due to the world space issue.

That's great! I don't really like the idea of static opponents as they might get easily beaten in case you're some levels above them. Scaled opponents - sometimes with a fixed minimum level - make the game enjoyable regardless of the PCs current level, so thanks for the decision to make it all scaled.

well, that depends of course - since Oblivion allows you to level quite far by only using social skills, it's very hard to get the right balancing. But, as I said, Prelude isn't focused on fighting, and in the one location that actually is, you can get any char into trouble, since you can get swarmed pretty easy...

Congratulations on release Elim!

TOS is fabulous, thank you so much for sharing it with us all!

Looks awesome! Congratulations on the release. Thanks so much. :tops:

I just looked at your list of voice actors, but did it the wrong way round, and asked myself "Are they insane? Gandalf AND Willy Wonka in Tamriel?!"
(hey, I expect everything from a mod named "The Other Spheres", especially if it's advertised by Ryan)

Anyway, the long list of voice actors and the description with the mushroom vendor really convinced me for some reason, so I'll try this out as soon as my Oblivion stops being a major annoyance, and lets me load my savegame.

jep, and to make it worse, Gandalf's a girl... I have no Idea why she insists on that Nickname, though i might think Sir Ian may like the idea. Willy Wonka is actually Andi Kr?sing, a young actor who just wants to make sure that his own site gets placed well in google. but since these forums are google-proof... And then there is that Cardassian guy. Strange constellation...might be a nice sheogorath-related idea for a plugin...

No, the tos-chars stay well inside the frame of the elder scrolls....

@Lilith: wouldn't have gotten here without one of the most enthusiastic and pain tolerating beta testers imaginable- thank you so much.

Deutsche Mods sind meistens von exzellenter Qualit?t. Lade runter. Gut, das du jetzt gepostet hast. Sonst h?tt ich das ?bersehen.

Static I think is the best. But, I play OOO, so I think it should be static, so as to not be out of place.

If I still played a vanilla-based game, I would have preferred scaled.

It all depends on weather you run a scaling overhaul or not, and how that mod handles scaling.



Yeah, Germans always make good stuff. Us lazy Americans...

So you can't please everyone - not much of a surprise




That's just because only the more ambitious projects are translated. There's a similar situation the other way around: what we get to see translated are mods like cybiades, cobl, Lost Spires etc. Both localized and international "markets" have their flood of plugins where people just started with retexturing or building houses, but they usually don't swap over until people improved their skills. So the grass is always greener on the other side.

Obviously, this is a bump, but a bump with screens...

http://www.planetoblivion.de/img/PreludeFar.jpg

http://www.planetoblivion.de/img/Preludestage1.jpg

This looks and sounds really interesting, Elim. I'm about to start a new game and will give this a try. Thank you for making it available in English.

This is really nit-picky, but the modder who made the Giant Collup mesh is named Brillo. Ndib is actually the name of his mod.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing this. I'll be using Better Cities so I'll report anything if I see a problem.

...and it looks great. This is surely a mod I want to play, just want to do a bit of checking:


I run both of those mods. Are the incompabilities game-breaking? I guess I could try to remove the MMM spawn point myself...

Voice acted quest mods are in my good book Looks interesting - Will try it out ! Keep up with the bad work :tops:

Is the conflict with MMM a major problem?

Just started playing this. Pretty good so far. I love lore-relevant quest mods! Ran across a couple minor bugs: in the mini-game with the brothers in the grotto, I managed to somehow knock one of them permanently unconscious when I first got in there, before I knew what I was doing. I really do mean permanently. I still got the message that he was unconscious but he just never got up. Also, I think one of the textures was missing for the gnd mesh on the , because it looked like just a pink blob on the ground for me.

Also, the stutter inside is unbelievable! There's no reason a cell that small should have such an adverse effect on my game. I'm actually dreading having to go back there. Maybe it's just too many havoked objects? Something needs to be optimized? I don't get it.

Anyway, I have found myself stuck at I don't appear to have anything on me that seems to be a solution to the riddle, and don't recall ever seeing anything in the game that would match that description. Any hints?

Neither the COBL, nor the MMM- Incompitabilities are "game breaking" - non of the minor problems are. Cobl is just a logical problem, no technical, and the MMM Spawnpoint isn't more than a nuissance - Lilith found it and had no problems at all - the spawning creature was just stuck - too bad for it...


@Pseron Wyrd:I'll fix that crediting mistake with Brillo in the next edition, thanks for the hint!


@ AngryYoungDunmer:
I'm well aware of the stutter. The Tristrip-based Havok is far from beeing as effective as the posibilities of Bethesda's exporter, especially with concave structures like the Pod inner Mesh. Most testers reported normal framerates after a few seconds, though. And i'll have a look at the helmet.

Pain? No pain involved only absolute fun and pleasure! Thank you for the privilege!


Not at all Blade! Out of all my trips to Tel Valus I encountered one Goblin who was partially stuck... Too bad for him!


Exactly! Nothing game breaking at all...

I really enjoyed the concept of TOS - Prelude. The sights and sounds, the quests and results, the tie-in to lore... It is fabulously well done and well put together. Very, very enjoyable!

Definitely a download here! The trailer was great, and I really liked the voice actor that was used for it. :goodjob: