Perhaps you can all help me out here. In my town that I am 'forever' building there are many, many interactive items. Flushable loos, useable sinks etc...

Let us use the flushable loo for example (I swear I do not have an obssession with loos )......

I hate when you have your mouse over an item and it displays what it is eg 'Pull chain', so I often leave that blank. This means that the player will not know about the active item unless they click on it, revealing the cool surprise and the really awesome toilet sound effects and also really adding to immersion. I mean, do you go to your toilet in your house and a little box pops up with 'toilet' every time you look at it? No, I don't have that in my real house either.

So I really want Pell's Gate to be immersive and the player having to 'try' everything out in order to find the cool special features and effects. BUT....will this leave too many in the dark? Completely missing the subtle detailed extras that really make this town unique and real?

So to get to the point of this long ramble....

Do you need to have these activatable items pointed out to you?

or....

Do you prefer the realism and the challenge of finding things out for yourself?

This would be a really nice feature.

A compromise, as ever.

No to the in game notifications and messages for these little extras....but....

Put them all in a readme, spoiler document packaged alongside the mod.

Ok, I was about to make a very gay joke xD
I think that perhaps in the most obvious ones you should let it (Most people out there don't see a videt except on certain... establishments.Curious thing is that they're common bath gear here in Spain), but it shoud say nothing of the cool features (Your female character can sit on it and wash her intimates. Hygene is vital).

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't usually the crosshair change into a hand-icon when you target an activateable item or an item that you can pick up?
So I'm sure you can leave out the text boxes saying what it is.

As S'lider said though, put them in a text document. ^^

Edit, I totally misread that. I don't know about that I never play with the cross hair on and I suspect 90% of other players don't either.

it's enough to just see the "hand" icon, like when you're stealing, without any text.
I can't wait to hear "Welcome to Pell's Gate, friend!" with the actual big town in the background of the greeting NPC.

You will hear that. So far there is also one character that is voice acted as well and I hope to add more. But only good voice acting as bad voice acting can really just ruin the whole thing. So probaly three characters will be voiced and about 40 others with silent dialog.

There are no bidets in Pell's Gate.....unless...someone fancies making one.....

I am surprised and happy that so many would prefer to discover activatable items on their own. My intention for releasing Pell's gate is to do it without 'hand holding' in any way and no 'cheat sheets' in the readme or otherwise. In fact I am intending on just releasing the mod with the very basic of information..ie...this is a large town. Rather then telling you all everything in the mod as it the general proceedure. If you want to find what is there you will have to actively go into the town and really explore. That way people won't breeze through knowing everything and not taking the time to really enjoy. There are some really fun features that you will miss if you don't try everything, really unexpected things not done before in Oblivion but will make you think, 'that makes sense to have that.'

So in this town you will truly have to explore everything and converse with everyone in order to find out what you can do and what the town is all about. I know that people will protest releasing without hand holding information, but I guarantee that those who actually try the mod and don't leave in a huff after posting 'No information, no download', will enjoy it all the more.

So long ramble short, I am glad to see that so many welcome the challenge.

I didn't really understand what you meant in your poll choice by; Do you want me to hold your hand? So I voted yes please, but I meant no

Leave it optional, through two ESPs. But if you only one want to offer one, then I'd say "no." Don't point out things. Let players discover that they work, and how they work.

No information would be awesome, although it would be given away by the crosshair.

I don't use the crosshair so I don't get the hand icon but I do get the text.

I agree with fable2... offer two esp's. S'lider's option is a good one too... have everything pointed out in a readme or similar document.

While I don't necessarily need to be told to click on something as obvious as a rope with a rock tied to it, I don't want to have to go through an irritating click-fest on every pixel just to see if whatever I'm looking at responds in some way.

I voted no

And i believe that in some castle mod (Glenvar Castle?!) not sure, that the small buttom in the wall you had to press to open the door did not show up a name, or a hand with the crosshair

Maybe you could add a talking Shezrie character, guiding you through Pell's Gate - with the option to mute

I`m really looking forward to the release Shezrie :foodndrink:

I also voted 'no'. I like figuring things out.

Though, I do agree with whoever suggested to include two .esps. I can only imagine the comments you'd get at Nexus or whatever if people get frustrated and don't understand something.

Yes. Glenvar Castle has activators that have no visual clues, other than an every so slightly different shaped rock. The mod author (sorry, can't remember name) recieved huge amounts of requests for help/abuse/everything in between because of this. Admittedly the first time you encountered one of these hidden activators it was a complete quest stopper if you didn't know what to look for, so far more serious than missing out on a cool toilet flushing animation.

Nevertheless, I suspect that any non obvious/hidden activators in any mod will generate complaints. A simple readme with the mod could shield Shezrie from a lot of potential abuse/ support work.

This is my opinion also.

:brokencomputer: :facepalm: woops, i misread the question and voted for "Oh yeah" instead of "no thank you".

A readme would be sufficient in my opinion, we dont want the obvious things like flushing a toilet to be labelled. You can make a sign "Pull here" though :thumbsup:

I voted for hold my hand.

I've played mods for both Oblivion and FO3 that tried the no-hand-holding approach, and my opinion is that it doesn't work very well. In theory, it sounds great: Think for yourself! Use your brain! Explore every nook and cranny instead of being led right to the "important" stuff! However, in practice, it often leads to:

• Not knowing if you've missed something, or if you're supposed to figure out something about what you already have.
  
• Not knowing how many things you're supposed to be looking for. It's frustrating if you can't tell when you're done with your exploring.
  
• For quest mods, not knowing if you've actually completed the current stage of the quest. Makes it difficult to suss out what's a bug and what's a further brain-teaser.

I submit that reading through the Nexus comments sections on mods that don't hold your hand reveals that for every person who loves the patient hunt-and-peck, there are many more who get stuck, confused, frustrated, and who require assistance.

Often, no hand-holding in the mod means a lot of hand-holding by the author on forums and the like.

gothemasticator

I voted no hand holding but with a slight qualifier.

if it is going to be relevant to a quest then yes a bit of hand holding,
if not and it is an immersive./atmospheric item then no hand holding... I like finding things out.

Having at least the activate icon there would be nice, because everyone is used to only activating things when the little hand icon appears.

Also I think that if you leave the name completely blank the hand icon doesn't show up?

I wouldn't think so.

I, uh... well, I voted before I read the first post. I thought you just wanted to know if any of us wanted to hold hands with you. :hubbahubba:

OT:
I agree with the majority on this one. Leave the labels out, but maybe write up a "spoiler" readme file to include in the download.

I voted yes. Cause to some extent, I like to be aware what options I have, without actually looking for them.


An anology would be OOO?s originally journal-less quests. While a brilliant idea, I failed to believe there was anything exiting to be found. When something isn?t pointed out as a feature, there USUALLY is no such a feature. It?s boring to hunt for ghosts that doesn?t even exists in the mod.

Flushing a toilet. Now in real life people look for the handle until they find it. In a mod, I would never assume it exists. So I wouldn?t even look for it (and there?s nothing more boring than scanning the view with your crosshair just INCASE there would be an activator somewhere, instead of just statics).


I hope this makes any sense. The problem with computer games is that they can?t have it all, and it?s exhausting to try and dissect what details exist and what don?t. So in my books, if you have paid attention to unsual details, make them show so that people notice them from all the static (pun intended).

I vote yes because I don't consider that holding a hand. I consider default Oblivion's quest arrows holding a hand.

Like Skycaptain and possibly others said, I agree with that.

I don't like to miss features just because I haven't clicked on everything...
Btw. Crosshair can be toggled off??

Will your mod be dependant on COBL? If yes and if you decide to do version without 'labels' (or in any case really) it would be cool if you'd included manual in Guide books feature so that it can be read in game.


Oh, and about not making a proper Readme... I think it would be pity since you've obviously invested lot of time and love for that mod not to have proper readme that it deserves. Please give it it's manual...