Unofficial Hearthfire Discussion Thread

[InsanitySorrow]

Hearthfire

Bethesda has announced it's next DLC for Skyrim, the DLC will be available on the Xbox 360 4th September, here is what was posted on Bethblog:

Bethblog:

With Skyrim’s newest game add-on, Hearthfire, you can purchase land and build your own home from the ground up – from a simple one-room cottage to a sprawling compound complete with an armory, alchemy laboratory, stable, garden, and more. Use all-new tools like the drafting table and carpenter’s workbench to transform quarried stone, clay, and sawn logs into structures and furnishings. Even transform your house into a home by adopting children.

Hearthfire releases on Xbox LIVE next week (September 4th) for 400 Microsoft Points.

Release Trailer:

Content currently known about:

• Choose Your Land - Choose from property in the salt marshes of Hjaalmarch, the forests of Falkreath, or the vast tundra of The Pale. For the more ambitious landowner, purchase multiple plots and start building a real estate empire.
  
• Customize Your Home - Expand your home with a variety of room combinations including an armory, alchemy tower, kitchen, trophy room and more. Grow plants in your new greenhouse, cultivate slaughterfish in the fish hatchery, house your Arcane Enchanter in the enchanting tower, or display your latest conquest in the trophy room. Add additional features like stables, mills, smelters, gardens and more.
  
• New Objectives and Interactions - Guard your home from unwanted visitors like marauding kidnappers, armed bandits, and skeever infestations. Turn almost any follower into your personal steward to improve and protect your home. Or if you require more help, hire a personal bard or carriage driver to ease the burdens of home ownership.
  
• Adoption - Transform your house into a home with Hearthfire's all-new adoption system. Adopt children and discover new ways to interact with your family. Play games with the kids, allow them to have pets and gain new bonuses from having a family.
  

Are you excited for the new DLC?, Anything in particular you'd love to see?, Well discuss it here

[lilith]

It looks like fun!

I want stuffs! There's got to be new stuffs in it!

[Vouivre]

One of the small things I've heard (haven't seen the trailer yet) is necromancy will have a theme. Such as the holiday necromancers have. what I DO see is a great future for modders using this new dlc perhaps as a means for greater immersion to have players build their own homes, wherever they wish. How it's done I'm not sure but it does look promising.

Post video edit:

But watching the video it seems to be greatly more of just a "Build your own home how you want." type mod, which may satisfy the need and want for console owners to have that small touch of "modding"

Edited August 28, 2012 by Vouivre

[Lanceor]

I'm actually looking forward to it, even though I know we can easily whip any house desired in the CK. I guess the fact that it's an official DLC "legitimises" the house unlike a house mod that can be seen as over-extravagant or a cheat.

What will be interesting is the way it will change house modding - will modders focus more on additional components for houses? Retextures? Clutter? Or will Hearthfire fail to replace a well designed CK made house?

[Hanaisse]

I see this as a great toy for console users. I'll probably get it for xbox. Not so much for PC users who can build their own custom house in the CK.

[greenwarden]

I'll (probably) really enjoy this in my 360 game- I've never been a fan of their interior lighting though, so I seriously hope the interiors can be customized a bit in that way. Hopefully there will also be some nifty new assets that can be used for modding houses on the PC. I'm also happy about the adoption thing- it isn't a feature I'm likely to use, but again, I've seen so many requests for it elsewhere, and I know it will make a good friend of mine over here very happy.

[Chesko]

I'll enjoy it for my 360 game. For PC, I see it as just another toybox of new animations and systems for my modding pleasure

[the-manta]

I really hope this DLC doesn't mean the end of house modding, or a massive shift in its focus, since I and many others find it immensely enjoyable in a way it probably won't be in-game. I don't suspect it will though. While the DLC offers much more than any house mod I could make in terms of customisability and functionality, there are surely only so many options they can include in a DLC. 3rd party houses can go *anywhere* and be *anything*. That's nothing against Hearthfire, it's just that there's only so much one team can put in one mod.

I have every expectation Hearthfire and 3rd party house mods can coexist peacefully (although download rates may drop for the latter), and I will be buying the DLC (from what I understand, it's pretty cheap) for the fun of building the house in game. For console gamers, I expect this is very exciting indeed.

[DarkRider]

I'll enjoy it for my 360 game. For PC, I see it as just another toybox of new animations and systems for my modding pleasure

This Can't wait to see what kind of goodies we can carve up in the CK

[Arthmoor]

It's a good filler, and as mentioned, some good material for PC mods. Just think. Instead of seeing one house built from the ground up, why not a whole village full of houses that you can populate with NPCs of your choice?

Also, if they don't include the Skeletal Butler from the Game Jam video there's something wrong with them

[Vouivre]

^ You nailed it perfectly, it would make for a very nice quest mod. Call it something like the Settlement.

[Hanaisse]

Go for it, Arthmoor

[Meo]

Love it. To see what the pros come up with, its great, we might even learn new tricks. Some may even become the new standards, like the actual interactive building.

Adoption, thats great too, but it makes me feel like my character, or my spouse, is sterile. If theyre going to incorporate the option to have a family, i want them to go all the way. Kids of your own, and bastards too. See your wife get bigger. A quest interrupted by a courier, demanding you come back home for the birth of your child. The baby is born, from another race, oops! The possibilities are endless. It could give a new life to the game for when all quest are finished and you settle down. Choose a trade to go with your new life, fisherman, hunter, farmer, whatever. Teach your kids skills as they grow, go on adventures with them. Your family could get sick and some could die. Your estate could get raided by goblins and you would have to rebuild. Again, so many possibilities.

I guess we'll have to settle for the generic kids for now.

[Lanceor]

I wouldn't worry too much Meo., the very first part of a "making babies" mod already came out about 3 seconds after Skyrim was released. Someone is sure to expand on that and extend it to its logical conclusion.

Mixing races would be... um a morbid curiosity.

[HeyYou]

I see this as more a platform to expand from for modders than anything else..... Given some of the features here, I can see mods coming out based on this for rebuilding various cities, and even starting new ones..... The player as a propertied land-owner, developing his own community. Nice.

[WillieSea]

Your house mod just needs to provide something other house mods don't have, that people want.

And I see a lot of people making modifications to the DLC to incorporate their own preferences.

[Mogwai6023]

Has anyone attempted to assemble one of the Hearthfire houses from the kit parts?

I am attempting to fix the main hall fireplace lighting so it doesn't look like someone has a search light shining on the hearth and surrounding wall.

So far no luck with that light it seems to be protected from editing or deletion?