bg2408

Daggerfall had dozens more than Morrowind / Oblivion. Each one of the Eight Divines had it's own guild, the vampire clans were guilds, and there were several knight orders: Instead of typing them down, I just point towards this (be sure to check the subpages) .

Is the download site online again? Well, if not, all the better. They're buggy little ripoffs either way :/. It's the copy protection of the installer preventing you to install them on anything but Windows XP 32. Unless it's Battlehorn Castle you like to have (there are better user made castles though), I suggest to get the KotN retail disc: It includes all DLCs except Battlehorn, is cheaper than buying the DLCs one by one, and the installer doesn't have the copy protection. Wait, scratch that. I suggest not getting them at all. Really, most of the DLCs seems to be made by a moddeler who knows his work and an intern at Bethesda.

Thanks! Small question: Can I open up somewhere (where¿) a thread about the RBP / CR / Integration voicing here? Would be easier to manage than PM sending on the bethsoftforums, especially since most voice actors are active here either way .

Quote What would you consider the most interesting culture in Tamriel and why? Depends. Oh, you said Tamriel? This makes it a bit easier, now that Maormer, Akaviri, Sloads and Daedra are out of the way . I think each culture in Tamriel has something interesting - even our friendly cannibalistic runts from Valenwood . My favorite would be the Khajiit, if only for their sheer weirdness. I mean, seventeen forms, ranging from elves to "jaguar man" looking more intimidating than werewolves on the bipedal side, and ranging from intelligent housecats to intelligent house big monster cats on the quadruped side. Combine this with differences between a jungle and a desert dwelling culture, which are still in conflict with each other. This makes it pretty interesting, I think. Which is also in line with the few snippits we have about their culture in lore (e.g. Words of Clan Mother, the "tapestry" interview).

Thanks for your welcome .

Quote No, life does NOT have a soundtrack.Not if you've got a mp3 player with you . Topic: I once had around ~500 tracks in each folder, but it was a bit too much, so I've cleared them a bit and end up with around ~150 tracks in each folder. A lot of stuff is in there. - various other game soundtracks, including The Witcher, Drakensang, Neverwinter Nights 2, Might and Magic 6, Sacred 2, Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, Two Worlds, Dungeon Siege 2, Jade Empire, Daggerfall. And a few I forgot. - various movie soundtracks, including Lord of the rings, Merlin, some of Ennoi Morricone's work. - songs from various bands, including Apocalyptica, Therion, Blind Guardian, Battlelore and some more obscure ones. Mostly the quieter of their songs. There's nothing better than exploring Cyrodiil while the Bard's song is playing ^^. And this is after I've reduced my music folders' sizes!

Hello. I've registered to post very few small texts I was asked to post. For those that don't visit the Bethsoftforums, I tend to write overly long texts and make mods with overly long texts - or no texts at all . Have to go back to modding, a lot to do... dialog texts to write... bugs to squash...

I recently had a quite... interesting discussion about Lore and mods through PMs*. Considering that this topic occasionally is mentioned in threads I've cleaned up my train of thoughts and summarized them here. This thread. It's still a bit random, though. The most important thing about the Elder Scrolls lore is that it's not set in stone. There's no "ES bible" or something. Things can change. Things can be added. Things can disappear. And, most importantly, there often are no definite answers. Example given what happened to the Dwemer? I think it's one of the strengths of the Elder Scroll lore that it isn't a clear cut between "right" and "wrong", that there is speculation - and uncertainty. That said if a mod tries to be lore friendly or not does say nothing about the general quality of the mod. If you want to have the mods you use lore friendly, simply don't use any mods which don't intent to be so. The choice is the user's. A lot of great mods, for both Morrowind and Oblivion, didn't take lore into account, because it simply wasn't part of the vision that drove the modder. This is not to say that a mod not taking lore into account automatically breaks it. No. Lore is flexible to a certain point. In fact no mod can exist without some "lore bending". Whenever something new is created, the question is not if it is created true to lore - this can't be - but how much it fits in established lore. Even the developers take their liberty with lore (two words: Cyrodiil, jungle). Modders must do so, because unless they recreate exactly what's there they have to take some liberties. The question is, when and only when lore is important for you, is to what extend the mod fits into established lore and into the general "feel" of the Elder Scrolls lore. And of course there's the question how much does lore fits the game, or the vision of the modder? I'm the first to admit that I will sacrifice lore immediately if it's going against gameplay. It seldom is, luckily. Yet there are cases. I'll come to that later. Besides good old fashioned lore there are several... special kinds. I don't think naming some of them "lore" is appropiate, but that's how they were named, so I'm sticking to them: Xeno lore: All kind of stuff coming from other works imported into the elder scrolls world. Pretty much the horror of all lore enthusiasts, but loved by a lot of people. Just look how popular dwarf mods are - and I'm not talking about the tall elvish atheistic mechanists they are in the elder scrolls world, but little runts with fake scottish accents. Hammering: Once I talked with a modder of a popular quest mod about his use of a Daedric Prince, and his response was along the lines of "well, it sounds cool to most players. I know it's completely off, but I needed a name!" Reimaging: This is breaking of actual established lore for the sake of gameplay or consistency or your own visions. Can be more or less lore compatible - example given RBP is one big reimaging of the existing races, but I tried to keep true to the "ES feel". Some are okay with Reimaging, some aren't. Although I see a problem here when reimaginations are forced down people's throats as "true lore". It isn't. It may be an even better alternative to the established one. In my experience, and I know that some tomatoes will fly in my direction, most mods claiming to be "true to lore" are actually reimaging things. Weasel lore, lore patching: Trying to explain gameplay aspects through lore. Used very often in the Vanilla game (e.g. "Levitation Act"). Is sometimes used by mods, but not very often. And only when it's about explaing oddities in the existing game not adressed by the developers (e.g. finding an answer why only one breed of Khajiit appears in each game can be weasel lore. Explaining why Kothringi are confined to Black Marsh today would not - they've gone extinct). Lore bending: Often when something is unclear in established lore, and you want to tackle these aspects in a mod, you need to make decisions in which direction in the "grey maybe" that are many areas of the Elder Scrolls lore you want to go. Can cause conflicts of interest if the player has the exact opposite opinion in the "grey maybe". Example given the controversy about lesser daedra - any mod tackling them must find it's own stance. Lore reordering: Commonly it is said that newer lore trumps older lore if conflicting. Some do not share this opinion. And it's their right to do so. A mod turning Cyrodiil into the province described in earlier games could be very interesting. In the end, if a mod is "true to lore" or not is harder to answer than it first seems. The list doesn't even cover the introduction of outright new elements. Any mods, even those made to work within existing lore do some bending, interpretation or outright reimagination. I don't think the question if something is "true to lore" should even be asked - what is important, imho, for some people is more if something is compatible to existing lore. "Lore friendly", or however you want to call it. And this is somewhat subjective, too. If a mod is used or not is a subjective decision. Like it is also a personal decision if a mod tries to fit into the existing lore framework or not. It's not making mods better or worse, just different. And choice is good. Now if lore is important to you, then lore friendlyness could be evaluated along the lines of how well it fits to existing themes, how well it matches previously established lore, but most importantly... immersion. Lore serves to deepen the world, deepen the suspension of disbelief. These are just very subjective means, different for everybody. So to summarize this rambling: 1. It's the decision of the modder to the extend he keeps true to established lore. Likewise it's the decision of the mod user to use a mod or not. There's no need to get upset about this. No mod is made for everyone. 2. "true to lore" is misleading. Mods cannot be completely true to lore. Better would be the question, if it has to be asked at all, if it is friendly to established lore or not. 3. There are several oddities when it comes to lore, and not all of them can be recognized immediately as "not true to lore". (* = And for the record: Don't accuse someone of "lore *censored*" because of a book that comes from Vanilla Oblivion. Just saying.) [i was asked to post this here. I won't deny such a request .]

In Oblivion most dialog is only used for "Rumors" and "Give quests". You can do a lot more. Dialog trees, which are common in other RPGs like NWN 2 are also possible to create with the Construction Set, but there are some pitfalls. I'm going to give a short introduction about how to create more complex dialog in Oblivion. 1. Use the quest window! The CS offers both the filtered dialog and the quest windows to create and edit dialog. Problem is that dialog itself is part of a quest (even hidden ones). Dialog not being part of a quest isn't played. Dialog of a non running quest isn't played. You can't really control this in the filtered dialog window, so use the quest window. It lists all topics associated with a quest. You can easily add new topics by just right clicking into the topic list and choose "Add". To create new topics, in the now opened list rightlick and choose "new". 2. Prefixes are of the utmost importance! If you only add stuff like "Rumors", it doesn't matter that the dialog topics are ordered alphabetically. If you want to create something like a dialog tree though, this will become a major pain. Simply for finding topics I suggest to use an individual prefix (e.g. I'm using "bg" for obvious reasons), followed by the questid (makes it easier to assign topics to the right quest). And then I usually use something like a quest stage, and option numbering. Quite obscure, so an example. Let's say I've got a "towngeneral" quest, and I want to have a conversation with someone about the weather. Then I would use something like [*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather0start <- starting point[*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather1favorite <- triggers that the NPC asks for the player's favorite weather[*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather1favoriteASunny <- actual answers[*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather1favoriteBRainy <- actual answers[*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather1favoriteCSnowy <- actual answers[*:bc308d9d92]bgtgweather2plans <- triggers that the NPC asks for the player's plans Sounds constructed, I know. Problem is, that the benefit is mostly visible when you've seen an actual example - and they can easily have fifty or more topics. That would be a bit much for a small text . If they're not ordered (which is only possible through using prefixes) you'll likely lose your mind. Keep in mind that the internal "names" of topics are not the topic name in game. Example given Rumors have the internal name INFOGENERAL. This is one of the keys to complex dialog. If you want to include something like dialog trees, persuading NPCs or similar, the CS will not order the topics for you. That is something unfortunately you must do. 3. Beware of bugs! There are two major bugs with Oblivion's dialog system you should be aware of. First of all, don't use the "AddTopic box" in existing topics. Only the last loaded mod can use them, which e.g. causes some of KotN's bugs. Instead use the Result Script box and write "AddTopic TopicID". Yes, takes more time, but it is necessary. Second if you add new topics to a quest, make sure to not click on any topic which has any flag, result script, or choices. They will be deleted, then. I'd suggest simply adding a dummy topic without actual text, so you've got a place to click to. This is less of a concern as long as you've got enough space to click, but once the list is full, you need a dummy or safe topic. I know, being aware of both bugs is annoying. My personal experience, as the unfortunate soul who discovered the second bug, is that this bug alone caused most (easily over 90%) of problems in my mod, and the few seconds it takes me now to work around it saves me hours of debugging later. Before I forget, there's another oddity: If you duplicate a reply, the CS marks (until you restart) the wrong reply as new (which means the Vanilla one is looking like a newly created one, while the new one is looking like the Vanilla reply). This can create severe compatibility problems if you pick the wrong reply for further editing. So if you duplicate a topic, expand the "FormId" row to see which is actually new. If you pick and edit the Vanilla reply all kinds of weird stuff can happen (aside from compatibility problems also mismatched or missing dialog files). 4. Condition everything correctly! Dialog usually has conditions. If you add a topic without conditions, every NPC will say it. That's usually not intended ;-). Also when it comes to quest stages, that's also important. Otherwise an NPC may tell the player something long after the actual event is over. Example given you've included a rumor regarding a danger in Bruma, forget to include a check if the quest isn't finished, then it may be played even if the quest is long since completed. Remember that you can copy & paste dialog conditions by using right clicks. This is especially useful for making sure that only the intended NPC plays the response. 5. Use scripts to store variables! Now here's a funny one. In Oblivion dialog can't directly store variables. Example given you're creating a multiple dialog tree for a quest in which you need to persuade someone. How to make it so that you don't need thousands of interconnections between the topics? The trick is, you can store and evaluate variables through use of a quest script. They are only there to store variables, they don't actually do anything. Example given a quest script for persuading someone can look like this: scn bgMyPersuasionTrackScript short successful short fail short conclusionAs you see, there's no actual code running. It's just several declared variables. But if this script is applied to a quest (e.g. bgMyPersuasion) you can do stuff like this with the result script: [*:bc308d9d92]set bgMyPersuasion.successful to bgMyPersuasion.successful + 1 <- whenever the player succeeds[*:bc308d9d92]set bgMyPersuasion.fail to bgMyPersuasion.fail + 1 <- whenever the player fails[*:bc308d9d92]if bgMyPersuasion.successful > bgMyPersuasion.failset bgMyPersuasion.conclusion to 1elseset bgMyPersuasion.conclusion to 2endifNow the last one evaluates successes and failings. And this then can be used as a condition for later dialog checks (e.g. if it is set to 1 -> "you've convinced me!", if it is set to 2 "get lost!"). Normally you cannot store the outcome of a dialog for later, unless you create the same paths over and over again for every branch. This method is a lot more effective, easier, and less time consuming. With it you can create some very interesting dialog challenges. Hope that helps, bg