[WIPz] The Dark Spire

[Rowan]

The Dark Spire

The Dark Spire stands alone in another world, long forgotten and abandoned since the disappearance of the architects. It acts as an anchor holding this world in a stagnant twilight.

Like a siren, it calls to those who would heed it's song.

And so, what begins as an free-lanced errand will become an obsession.

Be prepared for the greatest adventure of your life, perhaps the last. The Spire will test your character in every way, if you can find it.

Concept Art

Through numerous internet searches I have procured a rather large collection of concept art. I've included an assortment of pictures from a wide range of sources. This collection is not meant to be definitive of the mod, but rather provide a general idea of what I have envisioned. Note the spoiler boxes. They are there for your convenience only, there are no real spoilers here.

The Tower Itself:

Landscape:

Creatures and People:

The Cripple:

Items:

Other Technology:

Misc:

Progress so Far

I have been working on the plot for quite sometime now. It's becoming pretty enthralling, and is almost complete.

The Tower mesh was being worked on by Alizarin Crimson, however, he has since disappeared.

Here are some screenshots of what he was working on:

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ten

And here is some of my attempts at world building:

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Assets

I have scoured every resource list that I can find, as well as search TES Nexus, resulting with quite a pile of useful resources, that might possibly find their way into the mod, however, not enough to give me the start that I need to really start building.

I plan to learn how to model and texture soon, so that I can begin working on this again.

I will hopefully be able to use many resources from The Forsaken Isles, mostly Dwemer models and textures.

Acknowledgments:

Bethesda, and all artists and authors involved in creating the Elder Scrolls universe

Stephen King and also the Creators of Myst

Phitt and the Sheogorad team

Creators of 3rd party resources

Artists and Uploaders of concept art

WhoGuru

DarkRider

Alizarin Crimson

The Architect

Future Team Members!

And to all others who have supported this project, I thank you.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Rowan

[Vereta]

Nice work so far as always. If you still need the help and Alizaran doesn't turn out, I'd be glad to help when I learn how to model a little better. Other than that all I'm good for is concept art, writing, and basic CS work.

[DarkRider]

This looks like a great project! If you haven't yet, I would recommend perusing the Modder's Resource threads and checking out some of the work that is openly available for modders to use. You might find some unique models, tilesets, textures, etc to fill some of your needs and reduce your work load.

Here are some links:

http://oblivionsrealestate.com/Resources/resources.html

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=886919

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=867695

Resources can be invaluable to filling your model, texture, race, and creature needs. Even though you want some things to be 100% original, some resources have never been used and can be very handy!

[Rowan]

Actually, I've already scoured all of those resource lists pretty thoroughly. But thanks for the links. I got quite a few useful things, but not enough to really give me the start I need to actually build something. But like I said, a lot of small useful things that will definitely add to the mod, after I build the main part of it.

Mostly, I'm waiting to use the tilesets from The Forsaken Isles. I also need to get the tower itself made of course. That's really the main thing. I still haven't heard any word from Alizarin. I at least need him to upload what he's made so far, so that I may continue with it once I acquire the skill.

[WindmillTilter]

I thinks this is an awesome idea Rowan. I like the take of making the story realy pull the player in during the "treasure hunt", not easy to pull off but makes all the difference in the world. Looks like you have a good start I like the looks of your worldspace, and the tower looks excellent so far. Hope you manage to get hold of it.

Best of luck.

WT

[WhoGuru]

Looking amazing as always Rowan! I really hope Alazarin comes back at least long enough to give you the models he's already done. They do look impressive. If not, I have faith you'll get it done! Necessity is the mother of invention! You'll find a way!

[Rowan]

I just a had a new exciting, but obvious idea. Your quest will start out with almost an exact duplication of the quest in Morrowind where you find the puzzlebox for the mage's guild. Only instead of leaving it at that, finding the puzzlebox and handing it over to the mages guild is just the beginning. Once you find out (haven't figured this one out yet) that the puzzlebox is actually a key to the Spire, you go back to the guy you originally gave the puzzlebox to asking if you can have it back. He says no. P This opens up multiple paths to the tower, some shorter, some longer, some darker, some more heroic. You could kill the guy and take the puzzlebox, or you could find a way to convince him to give it back to you.

Anyway, there will be many options. Perhaps there is more than one puzzlebox. Most likely the mages guild wants to claim the whole tower for itself and is only using you as a tool to get to it....etc.

much to think about. Feel free to throw any ideas my way. I would greatly appreciate any that you might have. They will help in the development process. D

[WindmillTilter]

I very much like the idea of giving the player multiple choices and having their actions lead to a different outcome waayy down the line. A style that isn't utilized enough in my opinion.

You could even have different areas of the Tower that are only available to certain alignments. People who just killed the mage and took the box can access certain rooms and related bonuses that others can't, but cannot acces areas that more moral players can. Alternately you could simply have more evil players refused entrance untill they perform a quest to atone for their actions.

Depending on how complicated you wanted to make it you could track more than just "good" or "bad" actions. To use the first example rather that just killing the mage, or doing nice things for him untill he helps you. There might be an oportunity to follow him and catch him in some misdeed then blackmail him. All three options wouldn't have to available at every choice but you could track how often a player choose one of the 3 (or however many) paths.

Speaking only for myself it would be a good idea to always have at least one moral choice that allows the player to procede. When I'm playing an assassin or thief it doesn't bother me to do things that appear selfless to gain a desired reward. I figure that the character would follow the path of least resistance to the desired goal. If it's easier to help someone that deal with the consequences of killing them fine. When I'm playing a more upright paladiny character though and the only way to procede is to steal or murder it irks me, as I'm forced to break character. Just my thoughts.

WT

[Rowan]

Yeah, those are good thoughts. I'll have to write down a more detailed plot scheme, and outline the different paths as well and their associated consequences. But I know I want there to be options and several ways of obtaining the tower. The tower itself is pretty neutral. It would let you in as long as you had the solved puzzle box.

Another option for the character would be to never return the puzzlebox to the mage in the first place. Just try to solve it on their own. However at some point the player would be found and confronted.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to implement the solving of the puzzlebox. Whether I want it to actually be interactive or just based automatically on your intelligence attribute. Maybe the player could be teleported to a room where they solve a giant rubix cube! All thought that would be pretty difficult for people if they didn't know how to solve one. Also, I imagine a pain to script. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this one. What kind of puzzle should it be exactly? And should I have it simply automatically based on the character's intelligence attribute? Maybe a random chance to solve? A chance that would increase with the character's intelligence but never reach 100% So you may fail to solve it hundred times before you actually do. Your journal says to just keep trying. After maybe 20 tries your journal updates again and says you might need a higher intelligence. After 50 tries it says you should get some help!

Likely your character will need an intelligence higher than 100 to ascend the tower. Which means taking advantage of the buffs that are available and setting your skill and attribute thresholds above 100. One thing is for sure. I want this tower to be extremely difficult even for level 50 characters. For any character below level 20 it would be impossible. Just for the realism factor. It would probably be possible for a level 20 character to get pretty high up using all the secret buffs I'll provide but actually beating the tower completely may be beyond their ability, until they are closer to level 50. However, keep in mind I want to test actual player skill and strategy, not just the brute strength of their character.

The tower itself and the dwemer who created it are not evil but nor are they good. Like I said, when they got trapped in this world some of them succumbed to madness and obsession hence all the puzzles and traps. (Still not sure of a really good explanation for that) They also found ways to augment their technology. Their constructs are meaner and more advanced than most normal dwemer inventions. They almost formed a unique culture of their own. Hence the almost gothic like architecture. Their architecture will be kind of a mix between gothic and steampunk as well as an element of complete alienness.

[WhoGuru]

The tower itself and the dwemer who created it are not evil but nor are they good. Like I said, when they got trapped in this world some of them succumbed to madness and obsession hence all the puzzles and traps. (Still not sure of a really good explanation for that) They also found ways to augment their technology.

Ah a good explanation is easy We already know the Dwemer were prolific inventors and prone to creating things before considering the consequences. See Kagrenac's Tools and the fact that they blinked themselves out of existence somehow. So it's not a far stretch that in the continued creation of their monolithic tower, they created something that drove them mad, making them increasingly more paranoid, filling the tower with traps and puzzles meant to protect them from dangers that didn't exist except in their minds.

Just a thought.

You could even carry this idea a step further and have the tower affect some of the player's stats, buffing some while weakening others, rather like Corprus. Could make for a very paranoid and even frantic trek through your tower, trying to reach the top and the ulltimate goal, whatever that would be, before their stats dropped too low to go on and they'd have to leave the tower to restore their stats.

[Rowan]

That's a logical explanation.The next question would be, what else would drive the dwemer to madness besides being trapped in that world? Maybe they could feel the rest of the dwemer race wink out of existence, and somehow they alone escaped annihilation? And maybe there was something else. Something deeply disturbing they found in that world...

And that's an excellent idea! The tower could slowly drain your willpower, and maybe other stats too! You would be forced to leave the tower and come back the next day.

Have you ever read the book diamond dogs? Here is a link In it, the would be conquerors of the tower augment their bodies and minds for the sole purposes of getting to the top of the tower. One of the character becomes completely consumed with his obsession to beat the tower. It's not nearly as good as the Dark Tower serious, but I must admit quite influential to my work. My idea is not really my idea, necessarily. I'm just using what is already here....changing it to fit a new medium. Of course that is how a lot of creation happens. Stuff can neither be created nor destroyed right?

[WhoGuru]

Okay, well, running with that theory, we could say they created the device that began driving them mad before gaining entrance to that world. Perhaps this device was the thing that allowed them entry to that world in the first place and trapped them. Feeling the rest of their race vanish would certainly add to the madness and the paranoia as they would have no way of knowing what happened.

You get really crazy and suppose that as they built the tower, floor after floor after floor in their ever increasing madness, something in that world began to alter their tower, perhaps even giving it a sort of life of it's own and that's what drains the player when they're inside as it must once have drained the Dwemer, only they were too mad by then to know enough to leave.

I've never read Diamond Dogs. Thanks for the link. I'll stop and read it here soon.

[Rowan]

I like the idea of the tower having some being of it's own. That has of course been done before... but I think I could pull it off without it being too obtrusive. Just the fact that the tower "lives" on even though it's masters are mostly dead. It still hums with energy, and mostly everything still works like it was meant to. Spider drones repair things periodically. Do you think they would remove the dead bodies? Put them in some sort sort of storage place? This would be great place to get a whole ton of loot though if you could find it.

Just thinking out loud....

One thing is that I don't want the player to get too frustrated with the puzzles or have no idea what to do next, like I often did in Myst. I always needed to peek at the walkthrough periodically. Journal updates will be of high importance for this reason. I also am pretty against way point markers as I see this as being too much help.

[WhoGuru]

I like your idea of the spider drones dragging all the bodies off to some sort of refuse heap. That would certainly be a find worth cheering about for the player. And I would agree, if you did give the tower a life it's own it should be unobtrusive. As though it's just passively feeding off the player, no actual sentience.

I'm all for leaving out the map markers! Can't stand the things myself, but then I played Morrowind long before Oblivion and I don't need to have my hand held during a quest. LOL Which is why we don't use them in our mods either.

[Rowan]

Red, I know that you are a "lorehound" so I was wondering if you knew how this mod of mine might fit into Dwemer Lore...and if you have any ideas about how I can make this more lore friendly/fit in with the rest of the world, I would like to hear them. I'm not one for total conversion type mods really. I would rather my work fit into the already established elder scrolls universe and be an exploration of that universe and the possibilities it presents.

[DaMage]

Well just filling in for Red here.

Its common knowlage that the dwemer had the ablitily to vists other planes of reality, also that they where similar to us modern day people, if they could make a machine to do it, they did. They we also fasinated by advancement in their technology, always yearning to learn more about something.

You say that these are outcast, maybe this tower is a way for them to channel energy in order to power some machine, maybe to get back home?

dunno if that helps, but it might.

[WhoGuru]

Ooh very good idea there Mage!

Here's your first stop for Dwemer Lore Rowan. = Dwemer Studies

It's a collection of links to books in the Imperial Library that will give you the most comprehensive information on them. Here are a few excerpts for you.

From "The Definitive Guide to the Dwemer":

We know that they were feared- by the Dunmer, by the Nords, by the Redguards, perhaps even by the Gods. Some might say that, in this respect, the Dwemer were "blasphemous". They challenged the power of the Et'Ada (Aedra and Daedra), questioned their authority, and travelled into the "Outer Realms". These factors may have led to their demise.

According to Chimarvamidium (Ancient Tales of the Dwemer, part VI), it has been suggested that the Dwemer had an ability that was named "The Calling". This is akin to what we know as telepathy or field-consciousness. It allowed Dwemer to communicate with each other over great distances. It has been suggested that, in the last moments before they disappeared, the Chief Tonal Architect Kagrenac used The Calling to summon all of the Dwemer people and rally them to carry out their plans to transcend the Mortal Plane. Whether this version of their end is the true one remains to be seen.

Secondly, the last living Dwarf, Yagrum Bagarn, said that when the Dwemer disappeared he was in the "Outer Realms", and thus did not disappear with them. The Outer Realms refers to that which is outside of Nirn, whether it be Aetherius, Oblivion, or some other "location" in the Aurbis is unknown. At any rate, this shows us that at least some Dwemer had the ability to remove their bodies from the mortal Plane and travel beyond normal bounds, something like having an out of body experience and (perhaps) taking your body with you.

[Rowan]

Thanks! That's really useful information. I didn't know that the Dwemer actually did travel to the outer realms.

[Rowan]

So, I've arrived at somewhat of a quandary. I need to decide upon the overall landscape/climate for the world in which the Spire exists. But I'm having trouble deciding upon that overall theme.

Here are some of the ideas I'm working with, feel free to come up with something completely different though.

I would appreciate any opinions you might have about this!

Edited March 2, 2010 by Rowan

[DarkRider]

Be wary of anything that's too red. The Oblivion planes sort of monopolize that in Oblivion so any worldspace you make with an extremely red climate would look like another daedric plane for sure. Some of the other concepts are cool I like the jagged crags of the last picture, makes it look like a jagged terrain in a deceptively serene setting.

[Rowan]

Yeah, the last one wouldn't be difficult to make at all. I probably wouldn't even have to alter any sky textures! What do you think of some of the more golden places?

[DarkRider]

Yeah, the last one wouldn't be difficult to make at all. I probably wouldn't even have to alter any sky textures! What do you think of some of the more golden places?

The golden spaces are kind of neat, they wouldn't be too hard to emulate in Oblivion, relatively easy actually. On a big project, easy is always good.

[Rowan]

One problem I've experienced is making the landscape believable. Even though it's fantasy, there has to be an element of realism otherwise it just looks fake. It's kind of a delicate balance. I wonder what makes a landscape believable?

I'll post some screenshots soon.

[DarkRider]

Quote

One problem I've experienced is making the landscape believable. Even though it's fantasy, there has to be an element of realism otherwise it just looks fake. It's kind of a delicate balance. I wonder what makes a landscape believable?I'll post some screenshots soon.

The trick is in the details. Spend time scattering rocks, debris, plants, etc. The more depth you give it the more believable it will appear.

[Rowan]

Hmm, yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe I'm approaching this backwards. I haven't placed any details yet at all. I've just been messing with the atmoshere. I guess that's because I'm not quite happy with the shape of the land yet. That's something that I still need to work on. I think I'll fine tune that now!

These threads are useful for thinking