As the creator of 200,000+ downloads Oblivion Mod "The Romancing of Eyja", I will bring to you Unholy Darkness. Unholy Darkness is a complete vampire overhaul intended to bring the player unholy powers and a deep vibrant experience playing as a vampire. The only reason I bring this up is so you know the mod will not be vaporware. It will take a long time to complete but I will not quit. The mod is now at alpha status.

Gameplay vision: I've tried tons of vampire mods, and none of them quite felt rich. Either they were strong on some scripting, but weak on graphical substance, or bug laden, etc. Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent vampire mods out there, but I believe a winning mod will have a full blown experience: Graphical, gameplay, quests, voice acting, new sounds, new places to explore and NPCS to meet, etc. I want vampires to be social experts. They should be able to manipulate the public, provided they keep a low enough profile and their true identity remains a secret. While I will try to stick to lore where I can, I feel that a quality experience overrides the need to follow lore. Lets face it, if you loved the lore and stock oblivion vampires, you wouldn't be reading this thread I fancy the idea of low level vampires hiding and if they get foolish and are caught feeding too many times or showing off in public, they will pay dire consequences and end up on the run and outlawed from cities, etc. But a vampire who follows the code and plays by the rules of the elder vampires may become a very powerful warlord, untouchable by mortal guards and laws.

I plan on releasing the mod in stages. First off I will release the vampiric powers, and then later I will add Vampire hunters, items to buy, homes, and finally quests. Then again, I might hold back until its all done. It all depends how busy RL is.

Features:
*Feeding makes you stronger not weaker. The more times you feed, the more powers you slowly unlock. There are also powers that unlock over time, and a named rank system that reflects both your feed count and your age.
Penalties for not feeding.
Unlock powers as you feed and age as a vampire. *Done
Turn NPC's into vampire thralls *Done
NPC's can follow, stand guard, stay put or resume old lives
Holy damage in chapels *Done
Nocturnal Buff and Daytime Debuff *Done
Sun damage but it is reduced or eliminated for brief periods as you age and are fed. *Done
Unholy Fury. For brief periods of time, a vampire can focus his powers for a massive increase in strength, agility, super jumps. Activating this ability drains all your magicka so you cannot cast any spells while this power is active. Using this power will make you thirsty faster*Done
OBSE hotkeys for all toggle vampire powers *Done
Mask Darkness (toggle vampire appearance to mingle with mortals) *Done
Custom vampire morphs *Done
Sleep Suggestion - causes mortals to possibly go to bed so you can feed on them. (greater power) *Done
Feed through dialogue *Done
Feeding repeatedly on the same mortal causes them to either die or seek healing at local chapels.
Vampire hunters - If your infamy gets too high or you are caught, vampire hunters may seek you out.
Better sun damage shader *Done
Merchants that sell special vampire items like upgrades to player homes that add secret areas, darken the windows with curtains, add guards you can hire to alarm you if vampire hunters are trying to break in, etc. *All done except Skingrad home
Quests with two rival vampire clans, the Covenant (sophisticated ancient clan of vampires) or the rogues (unruly and chaotic, more goth looking) *Started
Vampire Hunters

Planned items:
Coffins - Coffins are required to sleep in. Similar to how real sleep mods work, vampires will need to return to their coffins to get replenished. Perhaps it will merely give you some short term daywalking ability, but I kind of see it as a daily requirement. Coffins can be bought and secret basemants can be dug and built in the player homes to store your precious home soil, which is needed for your livelihood. Otherwise, if you don't return to your coffin each night, penalties will increase. So in other words, a vampire will need to buy all the homes, in order to expand his operations, because you will be limited to a radius around your home coffin, or face the penalties. *Started

Vampire hunters will seek to destroy your coffins. So you will need to employ guards and servants in your keeps, and keep your identity a secret, or come home to find your coffin destroyed, your blood vials smashed, and your house burnt to the ground.

Vampire Hood which will conceal your identity. Useful to enter town with a bounty on your head, or if you are starving and cannot mask darkness, this hood will help reduce the chance of getting identified as a vampire.

Planed places

Vampire havens. Rough places where vampires and murderers, criminals are more than welcome. Watch your step. *Started

Player homes will have new areas you can purchase to store your secret coffin, etc. Curtains to keep the light out. *Mostly done

Vampire Guild. Basically there's two kinds of vampires. Rogues who are like bandits, free willed and do whatever they want (the kind that hang out in bloodcrust cavern), and then there is a secret ancient vampire society known as the Covenant which is organized, with rules and leaders. They have money, political power, etc. Here is where the quests can be done to learn more about the society. The player will have to pick a path at some point though. Both quests can be tried out to figure out what you want to do on your own, rather than choosing a path in the beginning before you know anything about the vampire clans.

Screenshots & Movies

New - Traditional Vampire fangs and True blood style fangs
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/fangs_traditional_final01.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/fangs_traditional_final02.jpg

http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/fangs_trueblood01.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/fangs_trueblood02.jpg

http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness09.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness08.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness13.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Tamika%20Thrall.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness21.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness31.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness32.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness_vampire_ancient_male.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness_vampire_ancient.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness46.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness47.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness24.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness25.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness26.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness27.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness28.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness29.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness30.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness22.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness23.jpg
http://downloads.4drulers.com/oblivion%20screenshots/Unholy%20Darkness01.jpg

Movies:
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20vampire%20power%20hotkeys.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20Force%20Feed%20Final02.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20Gameplay.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/VampireBirth.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/LlordrilAndrethiQuest.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/vampire%20transformation.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20Effects.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20Secret%20Vampire%20Lair.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/TurningNPC2Vampire.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20-%20Meet%20Silian%20Valodius.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/UnholyDarknessVampiresScareHorses.wmv
http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/VampireDeaths.wmv

Any ideas or things you would like to see are more than welcome.

Frequently Asked Questions
When Will it be done?
Not any time soon, but hopefully by spring 2010
Will it be compatible with "insert mod name here"?
If it doesn't modify vampirism, probably. But don't expect me to support unholy darkness if you have ANY other vampire mods installed.
Can you feed off of corpses?
Yes but it will make you sick. But its quite easy to feed off of NPCs now. You can feed on sleeping NPCs as per the stock vampires, you can feed through dialogue (if you can convince the NPC), you can force feed on NPC's against their will, you can cast a spell on them to make them fall asleep, and you can drink less satisfying blood potions.

I suppose that does make more sense than checking it because to a vampire, it would just be something you "feel"

I expected it to make your character stagger, not fall to the ground BTW, was the falling so slow because you were recording?

Same for me. I only started checking this mod out around maybe topic late in topic 4 or early 5, but it's come along quite nicely. Lots of new features came about as well. Good job all around!

The falling is just the stock game physics, if you've ever been knocked back, its always like that. I can reduce the amount some, but then the player can get right back up and its as if nothing happened. I might even damage the player yet from the knockback. I'm glad your liking the mod. I don't really know how to make the player just stagger back. Maybe if I lower the push amount it will result in just a stagger. I barely got it working last night and shot video so it might get tweaked just a bit more yet.

The other cool thing about it is I guess if you use a negative number it pulls the target in like telekinetics. For mage vampires it would be really cool to grab someone and pull them into you from a distance and then force feed on them. So I'll mess with it a little bit more tonight and see how these new features look and work. Then I have to get back onto the vampire hunters, they still need quite a bit of work, and need to be able to burn your coffins, put garlic in your house, light you on fire in combat and all kinds of other stuff.

Plus i'm excited to work on the seductive side of things. Take your clothes off and and walk by nearby members of the opposite six and they will follow you into an alley where you can seduce them into a snack.

While none of my characters have been knocked back in a while, I just don't remember it being that slow. I guess I'll have to take your word on that one. I was probably basing it off how NPC's fall if you do the backwards power attack. They fall much quicker. Not quite sure why the PC would not do the same.

LOL! That would be interesting...
You walk by them and whisper something into their ear :whisper: and suddenly they're following you while you prepare for your snack.

MM if you need ideas of armor/clothes for male here some that I found in TESNexus in over 100 pages

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24091
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29746
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21724
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24891
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29005
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24991
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25082
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24756
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30123
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24900
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29893
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21235
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18897
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23850

I was wondering if it was considered to make UI Options to Show Blood Level and Vampire Age and those things? It worked out well in the Morrowind Vampire Mods to have those display right on the screen.

Something like that. Basically it will be either be a spell or hot key, which will activate some sixy pose, and the less slots you equip, the higher your % chance to attract someone. Then you can lure them to a secluded area.



Woah awesome! THanks, now the rogues (for the most part) have lots of cool clothing options

Well that would require pluggy and some people don't want to install pluggy. Really the stats, blood level and such are not all that critical in game play. You just do what you want until something pops up. Its not the end of the world. Its not like a tank of gas where if you run out your stranded, but more like your car will only go 450 MPH instead of 500 MPH, until you get some more blood, lol.

Once you play it you can give me some feedback, if you still think it might need a meter then we can always add one later, but I don't think it is needed at all the way the mod is put together.

Well such a thing should be optional But it'd be nice to have the option even if you dont really need it, some people like to keep an eye on their blood level hehe

Sounds cool, but mabye then you should add something to make the guards try to arrest you if they see it, or something like that ^_^

And mabye if the check fails then they go like ""Stop! Guards guards! We got a.... seducer!" :dance:

Let me get the first version out then if lots of ppl want something like that I can look into it.

Hmmm I was planning on using it on the guards, lol. Seriously that is a good idea, I was thinking about how it would be cool if they try to arrest you if you were naked. So you might have to be a little careful guards don't see you when you do it, lol. It could be really cool though watching some moron follow you into a building then you pounce on them, lol.

Mole....

Has anyone ever tld you that you're a modding GOD? I cannot wait for this to be finished! It's going to be awesome, and then there'll be one more thing that your name will be immortalized in the Oblivion Modding Community for.

Yup. Ass kicking is what I do though. (least I try anyway, lol) I've been modding or professionally developing games for 15 years now. I wrote one of the top 10 mods of all time for DOOM back in the day. I spent a whole year on that mod, every night, just like I do these days, lol. Actually modding is more fun than professional development by far. The reason is you get to play with a finished engine and have all those assets to work with, etc. Where raw development you get crappy wip tools, and have no assets, temp sounds, temp art, etc... Granted it can be fun though because anything you dream up can become a reality. The engine doesn't support it? Code it in!

Anyhow.. enough about the mad modding mole... tonight I ROCKED! It was one of those nights where every script I wrote worked as designed. Gotta love those rare moments, heh.

So tonight I finished the vampire rank naming system, which in theory allows for 35 possible vampire rank names. I tested it out and it worked flawlessly. Gotta love it. While I was there, I wrote a transition messagebox. So as you gain powers there is now some crafty text to go along with these little icons that come on the screen as you gain new spells. It helps explain what is going on and helps the player have a feeling of progression, and vampire text is always kind of cool to read, least for me.

Then I went on and developed the foundation of a six appeal system. It evaluates the clothing you have on or off and gives you a six appeal score. Then when you cast the vampiric seduction spell on someone if it works, they will follow you around for an hour, if not, you'll get a message saying they don't think you are sixy.

I'll need to buff it out some more yet. Like add in your vampire level, the targets willpower and possibly some other factors to see if they resist your six appeal. I also intend to make the player play sixy idle's for a while after casting this spell. Anyhow, this should be fun to take someone to a secluded place and then force feed on them. I might make it possible to feed through dialogue too, but that might make it too easy to feed. Feeding through dialogue is for people you have fed on the day earlier or thralls. Normally people should not just give themselves to you that easily... I think this is more of a way to force feed without them attacking or something. Like I'll probably modify the force feed script to make them not attack or yell for help if they have this spell on them.

I'm open for ideas too. I just haven't given it all that much thought yet. Time to sleep on it

This mod keeps getting better and better.

Here's part of my view about the force feeding through dialog:
Feeding on someone you've enslaved like a thrall could be done through dialog, it would speed up the feeding progress a bit.
Although, feeding through dialog on a "free will" NPC would be a bit too easy.
I would say the vampire player would need to seduce the NPC a bit (either through spell or dialog or both) before he/she is "feedable". I like your idea about using a charm vampire spell on a NPC.
Running around naked would boost your six appeal, but might be a bit much nudity for some ppl (though i dont mind it ).
Perhaps you could boost up your six appeal using an item as a cologne or perfume as well? That way you wont have to run around nvde and be able to gain some six appeal (a solution for the prude people and kiddies)
The six appeal boosts dont have to be equal offcourse, i just leave that part to you.
Just my 2 cents here

Great work on the mod MadMole, anxiously waiting D-Day!

For some reason that made me laugh...

BTW, as for vampire powers, you said that most (if not all of them) will have their own hotkeys, but for the ones that are in your actual spellbook I was wondering if those would have their own custom icons. I, personally, love it when mod-added spells have their own icon. It just gives it a bit something more IMO.

I like the charm ability idea, but I agree with Dammus; seriously, if someone suddenly started to run around town naked the last thing I'd do would be following her, more likely I'd just wonder whether she's psychotic ;]

And about the messageboxes displayed when you get hungry or hunters are following you... Well, It's really irritating when they pop up during the game, especially in the middle of larger battles. I think it would be better if you just used the information messages that appear at the top of the screen instead of stopping the game to click "OK".

Ah, and is the 'vamp out' power hot-keyed as well? In the clips I saw you're only using a spell, so I wonder. I don't think you need to wave your hands to bare your fangs - looks silly.

That is a hot-key, yeah. Somebody already brought up the fact that it looks silly to cast a spell to become vampiric. Not sure if madmole is going to address that in the first release or not.

Currently you can feed on people through dialogue ONLY if you have fed on them before or if they are a thrall, or they really like you via dialogue + charm spells. Force feed is always a forcible violent act. The seduction power is intended to lure someone away from public eye so you can force feed on them. Its kind of a hypnotic trance sort of thing. I already have a sleep spell that makes someone tired you can use once a day, this is sort of similar to that but intended for evil characters who will then attack their prey.


Possibly.


You don't need to get undressed, it only increases your chances of a successful seduction.


I'll look into that.

EDIT: Well that was surprisingly easy! I was able to add vampirism without any cast anim. Now I will do it to all the hotkeyed vampire powers. The spells are still there if you want ot cast them, but if you use hotkeys, it won't cast. Pretty cool stuff.

Sweet! That just makes this mod that much better IMO.

Update: I've removed all spell casting from the vampire powers which have hotkey shortcuts. (but you can still cast them as spells through the spellbook interface if you want) It is more immerse to play this way I must admit. At first I thought "what a bunch of whiners" but hey, it really does help.

OH and someone said something about all the various messages... A LOT of them are for my debugging info. Like the "a vampire hunter is following you" will never display in the final product. All that stuff is for my own testing purposes so I know my scripts are working and I'll pull all that stuff out before I release it. I leave some of it in there as a reminder of work I have to do too, lol.

Now all I have left to do is polish up the seduction stuff, vampire hunters, some incomplete vocals, and I think it should be ready for release (aside from bugs my testers could find).

Always happy to provide a healthy dose of the so-much-needed motivational whining ;>

OMG! This is gonna rock so HARD!

Woo, awesome!
This really is one of the most dynamic mods I have seen. You have really set the bar high Madmole.

Personally, I'd use a Debug quest variable (set to 0) and only show that stuff during debug mode, so if someone *is* having troubles you can have them turn that on and write down what is happening, so as to help someone out. May make it easier on you to solve problems.

GuruSR.

LOL

Thanks! I hope so.


A friend of mine is running for mayor. He said he's running because the city needs change and a strong leader. Nobody is doing anything about tons of issues. That's how I felt about vampires in Oblivion. There were lots of them, but none of them did what I felt was important in a vampire mod, and that's to FEEL like you are a vampire. The visuals, sounds, vampire specific quests with dialogue, new npcs, coffins, special vampire lairs, tons of powers.. now I FEEL like a vampire with my character. Honestly in my study of what makes a sale happen, its all about stimulating feelings in people.

That is a good idea. I already have so much debug clutter that its hard to see what is going on though, lol... so for new scripts I just use messages or message boxes, then after I get sick of them I know they are working good and I take them out. I have learned a LOT about scripting making this mod. I thought I was ok at it before when I did my Eyja mod, but I bet if I went back and read my scripts I'd cringe now, lol. I didn't really comprehend nested if,elseif and else back then properly, so I imagine I could optimize things a bit if I went back to that mod, or do things better, more efficiently.

The thing about nested If and ElseIf statements is as follows:

1) Only 10 levels deep!

 if iHateYou  if NoYouDoNot   if ThirdLevel   endif  endifendif

Ten levels is the max (actually 9 is, it won't let you do 10)

2) Watch for variables in If/ElseIf lists.

 set A to 0 if A == 0  set A to 1 elseif A == 1  set A == 2 elseif A == 2  set A == 3 elseif A == 3  set A to 4 endif MessageBoxEx "%g" A

After one frame A will be 4. The best way to avoid that is to make sure the A variable gets set so that it doesn't see the next ElseIf and match. The way Oblivion reads the If/ElseIf nests is once the section is done, it checks the other ElseIf's to see if any of them apply. It's handy, but when you don't know it does that, it can be a PAIN. With the updates I was doing to a mod, I had to reverse the "A" variable so the highest number was checked first, then work my way backwards. This way, the "A" variable never got to the next section in the same frame (because that would often CTD the game or worse, Microsoft Visual C++ error).

Of course I found this all out the hard way.

GuruSR.