The Talon Company


From the creator of Oblivion's The Blackwood Company faction mod comes a new faction modification for Fallout 3 - The Talon Company.

This mod is currently in the creation stage at the moment, and when I start a major mod like this then I intend to finish it. It will be a major investment of time and effort, and I have other commitments this year as well (such as work/study/manga translation) so it won't be finished for a long time, so long that I'm not going to place any expected date. I also don't really like to release mods before they are at least almost ready, so there won't be any beta version (or if there is then it will only have a few uncompleted parts). Anyway, on to the main part of the thread.

Foreword
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Disappointed that there were all these factions in the wasteland and you couldn't join any of them? Let down that the Talon Company was a 1 dimensional group with no agenda or explanation other than "We hunt people with good karma"? Irritated by the way that note says "Got another holier-than-thou white knight needs putting down" instead of saying "Got another holier-than-thou white knight that needs putting down"? Then watch out for The Talon Company, a modification for Fallout 3 that will add the Talon Company as a fully playable faction complete with multiple quests, new perks, rewards, locations, and best of all - choices and consequences.

Intended Plans
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The mod will be adding the ability to sign up with the Talon Company in order to undertake contracts and additional quests. At the moment there are 5 beginning 'initiation' quests being planned and constructed with several other main quests to come after that.

Furthermore there will be an renovation of the base of the Talon Company, Fort Bannister. It will be turned into a living quarters for the Talons along with the player. New perks will be granted through completing quests, along with some special rewards planned.

The story will be fairly loose, with a significant number of the main quest quests being related to your interactions within the Company, as well as several special officer assigned combat missions (note that combat on these missions will be optional). The main part of the storyline centres around a power struggle between the two highest ranking members of the Talon Company and how the player is caught up in and resolves that struggle.

I'll attempt to stay as close to the Fallout spirit as possible. Each quest will have a heavy emphasis upon choices and consequences (long reaching consequences to prevent save and reload syndrome), I'll also try and stay as close to Tim Cain's rule of being able to solve quests through Combat, Stealth, and Diplomacy as best I can. The quests will also attempt to express the moral grayness of Fallout, the Talons will not be the simple 'hunt you if you are good' faction from vanilla, instead the quests and dialogue will explain the background and reason the Talons do the things they do. There will be a lot of skill checks (particularly speech if you plan on the diplomatic way of solving quests). Skill checks in dialogue will also be a little different, there won't be a [marker], nor will speech be a percentage. Instead it will all be hard skill checks and you won't know when you have access to them (although you'll hopefully be able to guess based upon what the dialogue says).

Progress
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Initial umbrella quest for joining the Talon Company is half complete. The other half can be completed once the first five initiation quests are completed.
Working through one of the first five initiation quests.

Pictures
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Note, you'll need to click on the link that says click here to download your attachement to actually see the pictures.

http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/BeasleysEncampmentFromAbove.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/CowleeFromAbove.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/TalonCoIntroScreen2.bmp?attredirects=0

Other
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Any questions/comments/suggestions are welcome.

P.S Anyone else find it funny that I'm working on another faction mod ending with the word "Company"?

A brilliant idea which I have huge hopes for. Officially my number one most anticipated mod. You have my full support for this project.

And I should have guessed that your debut Fallout mod would be the Talon Company

I will post again with some suggestions later.

Nice to hear you've chosen a project Lingwei, I wish you the best of luck here and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

What would that make you? The "Company Manager" perhaps?

Cipscis

Thanks mate. We can support each other as we work through our mods. Unfortunately I've already released a minor little mod, but I might go back and delete it since it would pretty much be superceded by this anyway.



Yep, look forward to my Elderscrolls 5 mod "The Company Company" .

A few quick questions: how do you plan on implementing joining the company? You would need to have either Evil or Very Evil karma, I assume. Would you be approached by the company? Or will you have to go and "sign up"?

Wait, just had an idea. A note on the bed of each player house works well, with minimal effort required

Will there be an initiation quest? Perhaps a difficult hit on a target?

Have you got around to considering what you will do when you reach a high rank? Perhaps you select who you'd like to take a hit out on?

Again, I have great faith in this; one of the few quest mods which I feel are likely to get finished. I know this may be too early to make a judgement call, but I have a "good vibe". So best of luck with this.
Attentater

Blow up megaton get approached by the Talon for recruitment?
Me thinks Mr Berk is the secret Talon representative of Tenpenny Tower.

oh yeeah Loved the Blackwood comp. and I can't wait for this to be released

Awesome....now I can be a darker mercenary in Fallout 3 as well as Oblivion . Loved playable Blackwood Company, so I have full confidence in you. Looking forward to this.

This will add an immense ammount of enrichment to the game. Highly anticipated. :goodjob:

I'm really adept at low Intelligence dialogue, if you need anything.



bit-of-a-Noob is really adept in all things deemed low intelligent

Looking forward to it, lingwei Fallout 3 is a much more lonely place than Tamriel...

Looking forward to this as well! I have a character with few scruples that would love to join Talon Co.

have using big words to prove that you are good at using small ones, funny old_andy =p

Anyway when this is done I will download I will, join then I will kill all those do-gooders hahah

amazing Idea can't wait to see it done.

Always wanted a faction i could actually join, and it would fit a few of my.......well lets just call them what EVIL/Stark Raveing mad characters.

Wow, actual varied dialogue paths? Stupid speech? I think I'm in love! Best of luck to you, I'll be looking forward to this.

if you need voicework done, sign me up. this sounds like an amazing mod!

Hey, now THIS sounds neat. If you need a voice actor or two, then why not try this svcker? I could borrow some more professional gear from my school, and then it'd be a half-decent voice! Heck, I can even do different voices then my own(so long as you tell me what you want me to sound like).

No matter what, this is a WIP thread to keep your eyes on people, this could be the first huge quest mod, or maybe second! Heck, it might even be THE big quest mod(like how that Tales of the Fiend mods kept being described, and I never got around to downloading)!

The plan is to allow anyone to join regardless of karma. I'm going to try and display them in a more 'neutral' light...I don't really like using words like good and evil in a Fallout setting, because part of the basis for the original is that good and evil are discarded after an apocalypse. You could take the water chip from the vault undernecropolis, but if you didn't repair the pump first then you would be dooming the ghouls to death through dehydration (assuming the supermutants didn't kill them instead). Now doing that is good for the vault, but bad for the ghouls, so would you classify it as good or evil? You can't, and that's what makes it Fallout.

I'll probably have the player go and sign up with a recruiter since that is the easiest way, although they will need to pay off their bounty first if they already have one.

Once you reach the upper ranks there will be a few nice bonuses, but I don't want to spoil them until they are ready.

Thanks as well to everyone for your words of support and confidence. I'm going to try my hardest this year as well so I don't let you down.

As for voice acting, I'll have to think about it once I am further into the project. There will hopefully be a lot of dialogue, which makes voicing it a lot more difficult. It will probably be easier than Oblivion though, since you don't need to make your voice sound like another person's in order to 'fit in'.

This sounds epic. I was disappointed that you couldn't join many factions in FO3 (coming from Morrowind, where it seemed you could join any two people and their Guar, I was hugely let down with Oblivion, too, and being unable to join a lot of organizations).

HOORAY

do u have a mod team or something like that?
or do you work alone?

Im really good working with meshes if i have the apropiate reference pictures and middle level scripter. If you need me for something just pm and ill do whatever i can to see myself owning Regulators dressed as a Talon.

have you thought of adding some special items like weapons or something like that?

I have an almost done MP5 that you can attach or deattach a silencer just by pressing the "x" key (can be changed). If you consider adding it, it should be finished in 2 weeks at most. Here is a spreadsheet of my achievements:

Added full compatibility to weapon mod kits = 80%

MP5 w/ attachable silencer/scope just by pressing a key = 55%
MP5 mesh= 80%
MP5 script for silencer= 90%
MP5 script for scope= 90%
MP5 geck data =http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/960374-wip-the-talon-company/0%
MP5 animation for silencing or scope = 15% <----- not sure if ill finish

M4A1 w/ attachable silencer/scope just by pressing a key = 42%
M4A1 mesh= 100%
M4A1 script for silencer= 50%
M4A1 script for scope= 0%
M4A1 geck data =http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/960374-wip-the-talon-company/60%
M4A1 animation for silencing or scope = 0% <----- not sure if ill finish

If you want any of these in your mod just pm me and ill give them to you so they can be added as you see it fit. (leveled list, quest reward, whatever)

Lovely idea. am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

possible structure for missions.(merely to get the brain cells working)

1) Joining the company: where the player encounters the company and is invited to join.
possible reasons to join: Approached after Karma loss?
Perk similar to the lawman one?
Random encounter?
Help an important member of the Talon company to safety and is rewarded?
Kill someone and deliver information to talon company?

2) Orientation-getting to know the company. missions where the player gets to know the company, how they work and payer is introduced to friends and enemies within the company and outside.
personally the most important part. this is where any emotional investment in the NPC's is established. Followers become friends and a good baddy can become truely hated.

3) rising in the ranks: missions where player gains trust and rises in the ranks of the company.
Possible mission types: assasination, retrieve an item,

4) conflict: players rise in the ranks is inturrupted- a betrayal, an emergency, a large shift in the talon company is somehow effected.

5) final story arc: The large shift from part 4 is resolved

6) leader of the company: player is now head of company with relevant bonus's

Wizard of They's basic structure seem pretty good, although I would like to expand on "part 6". How about a frop down list of NPC's appears, and you select one. After that, there is a chance (depending on the NPC) that this NPC will get assassinated, and be removed from the game, a chance that the target will "get away" (nothing happens), and a chance that your assassin will be killed in the process. There was a mod like this for Oblivion, I beleive, and I think that the concept is damned awesome

Anyway, can't wait for a progress report.

I was also a little disappointed that you couldn't join any factions, which is partly why I'm making the mod.



I'm just glad that I've got a beta tester as dedicated as you .



I work alone at the moment, mainly since I need complete creative control . I'm going to get some of the quests done before I start decided what extra weapons I want to give the player, although I do want to give them some. So I'll keep you in mind once I get to that point. Thanks.



It's funny but apart from a few minor differences that's pretty much how the quest structure is set up at the moment. I'm leaning towards just allowing the player to join. Also I'm not planning on making the player the leader of the faction, you'll rise pretty far in the ranks and get appropriate rewards, but I thought it was a little funny how the guild was somehow able to function while their leader was off running around the wilderness in the earlier Elderscrolls games so I want to avoid that for the Talons.



I believe I was considering adding this as a possible bonus. Another bonus will involve something similar to Nib's Enclave Commander mod, except with Talon Mercs instead of Enclave troopers.

Oooh, that's an even better idea! My problem with enclave commander is that there's no reason why you have a bunch of troopers following you, and no mention of how you became a commander. If you could add something like that in for when you complete the quest line, you would be a modding god.

as always sounds interesting.
if you are looking at the PC not becoming leader (and your rationale was something that always annoyed me in Oblivion) and possibly adding some aspects of NIBs enclave mod perhaps the Players ultimate goal would be to become a squad leader, at the end of the questline is in charge of perhaps 4 talon mercs.

hmmmm if that is the case if only parts of this mod could be added.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=943709&hl=

this is of course wishful thinking as I appreciate the amount of work and OBSE/FOSE requirement.