[WIP] University of Cyrodiil {UoC} - II : IV - Oblivion

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:53 pm

I was just thinking that maybe one of the homeless bums in the Imperial City is actually a former college professor whose mind went. Maybe this could be part of a quest or maybe if you visit this bum and start talking about the college with him, he will give you some special tips and you automatically score 10% higher on your next exam. But you should just have the bum be a normal bum until you get this quest. Then he suddenly recalls that he used to be a college professor, and he just spills out loads of useful info.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 6:11 pm

Well, look guys, I'll stop criticizing the immersionist idea. It's obviously getting nowhere, and I respect Daedelus's points.

But I really want to press you on this double majoring and dropping classes idea. I would, as Daedelus said, keep those ideas on the backburner.

I'm not exactly sure how you envision it, but such a script wouldn't be THAT easy to write. You'd also have to write a whole lot more dialogue, add some adjusments here and there, so it doesn't just include scripting difficulties.

Finally, Daedelus, I absolutely 100% agree with your part time and full time idea. We should definetly implement it.

Daedelus: Oh, by the way, Gangsta and I were talking about adding a restaurant, that is to say, the Hungy Dragon Restaurant to the campus. It would give players somewhere to eat besides the cafeteria. What do think?

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:26 am

Why 'a whole lot more dialogue'? I don't see any instances where you'd need more of it other than to ask the student whether they're double-majoring or not and which other major they'll be taking. Al long as we keep the code nice and organized, we can easily have one general global quest running, and the rest of the quests are for the specific majors and we'll keep all the global data necessary in there. I guess it all depends on the way it's being coded though.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:31 am

Gangsta, let's just drop this argument, we can bring up later...I really don't think we're going to reach a compromise anytime soon.

Anyway, on to more pressing matters, does any lore expert have some past battlefields that I could plan a "field trip" around? And no, Sancre Tor doesn't count, cuz there's skeletons there that want to eat your head off.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:00 pm

you could try going to that fort, the pale pass that you can go to in the lifting the vale quest.... and whats wrong with skeletons?

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 12:05 am

Oh man looks really cool. I am so downloading this when its a RelZ

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:41 pm

Alright, sure. We can just talk about it later.

Now, as for the fort question, I don't think there's any fort in the Tamriel worldspace that contains no monsters at all. Even if there are one or two that contain no enemies, mods like OOO or MMM would have automatically populated them. I have an idea though:

I've an idea on how to solve it though: we can take the 'Where Spirits Have Lease' route where we use enable and disable commands to teleport the player into a different version of the fort that is now filled with no monsters or treasure, and then disable that new door once the field trip is over. How are the forts in the construction set? Do they already come with doors attached? Or are the doors separate objects? The latter would make this easier to do. Though I don't know what sort of incompatibilities this will bring. We need to think of a viable solution quick though, since our field experience course will deal with 'field trips' on a daily basis. Since after all, we're expecting the player to have no combat experience at all, and it wouldn't be fair to have the player getting all this phat loot just because we have a really strong teacher.

I know it doesn't make much sense, but we can just have the University security guards go into these dungeons beforehand and clear the place up. Maybe we can have quests where you can help them?

Now Kroot, if you were referring to battlefieelds in the Tamriel worldspace, them we've get a problem. :frog:

What I suggest we do is make the NPC's essential right before the quest, and send some security guards along with the group to kill any skeleton or baddie they find. It isn't really the perfect solution, and the player can still get skilled pretty quickly if he happens to face a Bralog or something, but hopefully the essential guards will be enough to destroy the opposition.

Tell me what you think.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:23 pm

Well, the only problem I have with tampering with Sancre Tor is that we might accidently ruin the quest. I've read about glitches that occur when you get too close to the fort's location before the actual quest begins; you mess a whole lot up. Plus, the door to Sancre Tor has a special script; I fear that disabling it might screw up something.

My solution? Skip any quest related dungeon. We can't risk "dirtying the mod".

However there are quite a few other battlefields we can use. I was looking around the lore and found a few battlefields revolving around the Imperial City and other places.

Edit: In answer to the fort question, I want to avoid going to enemy-populated areas. However, if we absolutely must, then what will happen is I'll do a all out makeover of the fort. As long as it's not quest related, I'll just make a new cell and door, disabling the old ones temporarily. Then, I'll just put a bunch of dead enemies and security guards all over the place to show that the area is now "protected".

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:02 pm

since im not a modder i cant really say how hard or easy something would be, but wouldn't it be simple enough to just make an exact copy of a fort already on the map and then twiddle with it until you have the results that you want?

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:53 pm

What you're doing is exactly what I had suggested. D'oh! I forgot that ST had a quest associated with it.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:08 pm

What you're doing is exactly what I had suggested. D'oh! I forgot that ST had a quest associated with it.

Yup. Very muchly.

Fiach: Yeah that's what I had planned.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:04 pm

Woah, this thread is getting dangerously low.

I've some good news though: three fine members of this community have offered to write for this mod. Each one has given me the O-K that they plan to write as much as they can, and possibly an entire course. This is BIG! With one course already finished and four taken by team members, we can finish writing the lecture much quicker than we expected, assuming they all do one course. At the moment, only one has sent us something, and has been added to the list accordingly, but as other members begin to contribute, they will be added to the contribution list post-haste. I'm currently focusing on making up after-class and final exam questions for Divinology, after which I may write another lecture (since it seems all the fun ones have been taken.

) and we'll see what happens then.

Mark messaged me a couple of days ago telling me that he might not be able to work on this mod as much as he'd like to over the next few weeks, but that he'll try to read what goes on here as much as he can. So those are basically all the news I've to give you.

By the way, Kroot, are you writing a course?

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:13 pm

This is great news!

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:50 pm

My character, Prof. Charles E. Bottomsworth, Egorius Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography will like this very much.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:30 pm

Woah, this thread is getting dangerously low.

I've some good news though: three fine members of this community have offered to write for this mod. Each one has given me the O-K that they plan to write as much as they can, and possibly an entire course. This is BIG! With one course already finished and four taken by team members, we can finish writing the lecture much quicker than we expected, assuming they all do one course. At the moment, only one has sent us something, and has been added to the list accordingly, but as other members begin to contribute, they will be added to the contribution list post-haste. I'm currently focusing on making up after-class and final exam questions for Divinology, after which I may write another lecture (since it seems all the fun ones have been taken.

) and we'll see what happens then.

Mark messaged me a couple of days ago telling me that he might not be able to work on this mod as much as he'd like to over the next few weeks, but that he'll try to read what goes on here as much as he can. So those are basically all the news I've to give you.

By the way, Kroot, are you writing a course?

Yes, I am writing a course: Military and Social History. I'm currently prepping the visual aides for the first day. It's going to be like a strategy game. I have some miniature NPCs on a table. On command, they'll move according to the actual strategy at the Battle of Sancre Tor.

Oh, and I should probably mention that I will only be covering the Third era in the class, as the first and second are just too obscure with too little information. Besides, the Rise of Tiber Septim marks the beginning of the actual Empire itself.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:23 pm

That's great! Which means that we've only two subjects free at the moment, and I plan to write some stuff for Imperial Politics after I'm done writing up the exam for Divinology, which makes Literature and the Arts the final subject left to do (assuming everyone who is writing does one lecture, which is statistically improbable though hopefully possible) . How odd, I was going to write for LatA since I love the Literature aspect, but decided against it because it might've been too popular a subject, and I wanted someone else to take the spotlight there for that reason, so now I choose to write the more boring subject so that someone doesn't have to. Besides, this way I'll learn more about the Emperors of Tamriel and the Elder Council, which are quite interesting.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:44 pm

I'm writing up Daedric studies under good ol' Proffessor Casamir, outta be good fun ^^

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:51 pm

Indeed. I'm looking forward to reading what he has to say on the subject as one of my characters might decide to major in just that.

On the progress side, we've just received another Course Outline by another writer, which means that's one less course outline we have to write!

We're getting there, ever so slowly, but we're getting there, and as far as I'm concerned, we'll get there.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 1:11 am

Guys, sorry for the bump again but I'm in a bit of a pickle.

I've written quite a few questions for the first lecture alone, making a final exam with questions picked out of a pool a very probable idea. However, I'm a bit worried about the difficulty of the test to far, so here's what I need from you.

I'd like for some testers, maybe one or two, to see how each of you fare on the test I've written up. Please PM me if you're interested with the following information:

-Your (user)name
-Your experience with Lore, especially Lore dealing with religious items

You'll need to read around three pages of Microsoft Word and take a small 14-question test based on the readings you completed, so a love for reading is recommended. More information will be given to you via PM. But please guys; I want to make sure if I'm making the questions too easy or hard before I start writing more of them. 20 minutes of your time could very well make me a very happy camper. So please PM me if you happen to be interested.

That is all.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:23 pm

Alright...a little progress report:

What I've been doing so far is creating a really cool script--it's really nothing special, but I think it'll really add to the immersion of this mod as a whole. What the script does is add food to the tables for lunch and dinner. Any other time in the day, the tables are empty, but when lunchtime strikes, you'll see a bunch of plates, food, pitchers, books, etc. on the tables. The only problem is, it'll be a bit unimmersive to an extent, so here's what I'm going to do: I'll make the NPC's go to lunch an hour before 1:00 PM (the time the food appears on the tables) to give he illusion that the NPC's placed all that clutter on the table when sitting down. I always hated how food was always in places like the Fighter's Guild without taking consideration the time of day.

What this means for you all: I probably won't get to post screens of people today because this takes a bit of time to do (I need to give unique reference names to over 75+ objects and edit the script to enable/disable them), especially since I'm still green when it comes to using the CS. But I plan to work on this for the rest of the day, so maybe if the AI testing phase goes quick, I'll be able to post screenies tonight.

Now, I need to write up a quest as to how the player learns of the University... I need your ideas as to how I can do this. I've thought of a couple ways:

1. An invitation letter appearing once you leave the sewers: A decent approach, especially for people who want to roleplay with this mod in mind, but a severe oddity for those who just got out of prison, 'found' a university invitation letter in their pack, and decide to go take a few courses in Geography before giving the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre.
2. Talking to someone to let you know about the university: This method also is good and probably the safest. We put the NPC just outside of the Imperial city and the quest begins from there.

Tell me what you all think, especially if you've a better idea in mind!

This is a very exciting mod that I cant wait to have completed, I often roleplay my characters tarining up skills.

I have some ideas that may be interesting

Instead of the 'letter arriving in you inventory as if by magic' why not have posters around the imperial city (Like the grey wolf's posters advertising the university, it could even be scripted that when activated the quest is added to visit them.

You could also add in some one off lectures that focus on skills, these would be similar to the training already available in the original game, but would need the student to actually do something that involved the skill to gain the level up, the difficulty of the challenge would be set dependent on the charaters current level in that skill. (eg easy would be level 1-10 and would be kill a rat with you sword for the blade skill, where hard would be level 20-25 and would be kill 3 high level creatures.)

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:13 pm

I could just imagine if I started as a new player...playing Oblivion for the first time, and I DLd a S-load of mods, including a finished UoC, and Kregnir's Death Quest and Elswyr Anequina, what a different feel of the game I would get.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:23 pm

Hey guys, just thought I'd give this thread a boost. It's been in the gutter quite a while.

Anyway, just wanted to ask, has anyone been working on this?

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:03 pm

Yep. I'm still here. I haven't received work (or any word for that matter) from the two writers who offered up their services. I won't let it get to me though, this just means that there's more delicious writing for me to employ! I'm still working on this, just not as much as I'd like, usually for a fugacious amount of time. School has really caught up, and I just like my shiny GPA too much for me not to give my all in my academics.

Anyway, thanks for the bump and for remembering this mod.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:47 pm

Yep. I'm still here. I haven't received work (or any word for that matter) from the two writers who offered up their services. I won't let it get to me though, this just means that there's more delicious writing for me to employ! I'm still working on this, just not as much as I'd like, usually for a fugacious amount of time. School has really caught up, and I just like my shiny GPA too much for me not to give my all in my academics.

Anyway, thanks for the bump and for remembering this mod.

Well, I might not have a perfect 5.0, but I am doing pretty well, and I can't give up a whole lot of time for modding. What little time I do have, I, regretably, am spending on my new London mod. (Believe me, its addicting). So, I'm not sure when I'll get back to this mod, but I'm not sure that it will be soon.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 12:52 pm

Oops. Did I give the impression that I had such a high GPA? Sorry if I acted somewhat arrogant, it certainly wasn't my intention.

Don't worry too much about me, there's really not much to do at this point except reading and writing, and a whole lot of both to be sure, so progress may seem a tad slow and turbid (as it was) at some points. But don't let all that bother you folks, I've no intention on stopping work on this beautiful dream. I'll try my best to keep you all updated in the future.