[WIPz] Dark Brotherhood Chronicles: Awakening

[AndalayBay]

Dark Brotherhood Chronicles: Awakening

Once upon a time, our name was whispered in the dark corners of the deepest caves and feared in the highest towers. Once upon a time, we bore the blood of emperors on our hands. Once upon a time, we were mystery, and secret, and the greatest in the Empire would gather our rituals to be allowed to grovel at our feet. Once upon a time, we scorned Mephala Herself, stole Her treasures, and found a master far beyond what She ever was.

But now...

Now, we are scattered, the Sanctuaries sealed. Now, the blood you have on your hands is that of your own family. Now, our secrets are broken, for we never saw the traitor in our midst. Now, the body of your master and mentor hangs in Applewatch, and the Night Mother herself scorns us for our failure.

Where is the power of Sithis now?

In the aftermath of the traitor's destruction, the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood now faces new challenges. Shadowy threats from without and little trust from within. The Sanctuaries have been locked, the Dark Family hidden. But still, someone has found them. Someone seeks to wipe the weakened assassins from the face of Tamriel.

The greatest secrets of the Black Hand must be unearthed if the Listener is to save the Dark Brotherhood from extinction.

The Dark Brotherhood Chronicles is a large-scale, multi-part mod. It boasts many new NPCs, locations, and both a large main questline and sidequests, delving deep into the shadowed history of the Dark Brotherhood.

Over the span of its development, the Dark Brotherhood Chronicles has been anticipated, talked about, and even featured in PC Gamer UK, and it is our intent to complete and share the work of the many, many modders who have contributed.

Current Progress

The Dark Brotherhood Chronicles: Awakening is comprised of an 11 part main quest and 10 side quests. We have gotten three side quests finished but we are focussing all our efforts on the main quest in the hope that we can get Awakening released before Skyrim. Basically we will release Awakening without all the side quests completed if necessary. It takes about 5 days to complete a quest, so if we can maintain that pace, we have about 25 days of development left. We still have a couple of areas that need to be rebuilt. And while all the scripts (as in story writing) are done, we still have to go through the remaining scripts and make adjustments according to what's feasible to actually accomplish with the Oblivion engine.

Main Quest: 11 quests completed = 100%

Side Quests: 3 quests completed = 30%

Level Design: 80%*

Modelling: 85%**

Writing: 100%

Voice Acting: 10%

We do have some voice acting, but we'll need a lot more. Many of the recordings we had turned out to be unusable. We do have a couple of our quests voiced, but most of them are not.

*This is a guess. All the areas are done, but two need to be rebuilt. There is also a dungeon that I have to place in Cyrodiil and I haven't gone through and checked the quality of the work. It's for a side quest though, so it could be left out if necessary.

**All the major modelling is completed. We do have some custom armour that needs fixing and a few minor cluttering models that need to be done, like banners and paintings.

Future Plans

Obviously our main priority at this point is to get Awakening completed. We have part of the script for Consequences written and would like to release it, but it really has to be set in Cyrodiil, so we will have to re-evaluate those plans with the release of Skyrim. We would like to have part 3 take place in Skyrim and will probably do something along those lines.

Team Members

Amadaun - Team Lead, Modelling, Texturing, Level Design, Site Administration

AndalayBay - Team Lead, Scripting, Quest Building, Level Design, Site Owner

Xae (Xaeaix) - Sound Engineering, Soundtrack, Site Administration and Design

fg109 (RandomNoob) - Scripting, Quest Building

Morrigain - Writing

Rahvin - Writing

Lareneg - Writing, Beta Testing

'Drea - Writing, Beta Testing

omeletted - Texturing, Beta Testing

Elec0 - Modelling, Beta Testing

Koniption - Modelling, Texturing

Ibsen's Ghost (Ibsen3) - Voice Acting

Silver - Modelling

Silencer (Cotillion) - Site Administration

Siulil - Beta Testing

theinfamouskat (thechickwhopwn3dyou) - Writing

Arthmoor - Technical Consultant

Project Site

The project is being hosted at Dark Creations.

Gallery

We are still in the process of restoring the gallery, but some screenshots and concept drawings for the project have been posted: Dark Creations tDBC Gallery

Soundtrack

Listen to the music for tDBC created by Xae here.

Edited November 8, 2011 by AndalayBay

[Meo]

This thing has been in development forever, i just remembered i made a dagger for this.

[AndalayBay]

Yep! And we're finally using it We're converting it to be a real weapon It's a gorgeous dagger.

We had a lot of turnover, but things have stabilized now and we're making the final push to actually get this released.

Edited May 29, 2011 by AndalayBay

[DarkRider]

Exciting news, I remember this project was announced when I first joined the community an age ago, will be great to see it finally released.

[DsoS]

sounds interesting, can't wait for it

[Hanaisse]

Sithis would be pleased. As am I. Can't wait to see this released.

P.S. If you're ever in a bind, I do modeling/texturing. I'd gladly volunteer my services.

[Cydonian_Knight]

Been tracking this one for years, great to see it finally moving towards completion. Great work!

[AndalayBay]

Thanks guys! We'll try to keep you posted on our progress. We've been so busy, even getting this thread up took us over a week

[Amadaun]

Tell me about it! It was kind of like: "Okay, we need a WIP thre- No, wait! We have to add this mesh! Okay, now, let's add in the tagline for the- Hold up! Grab the beta-testers, and run through this Sanctuary! Almost...just a few more lines and we can post the thre- Oh no! I forgot the alpha for the normal map of that one texture!"

You know, stuff like that.

[DarkRider]

Well I'm sure all the hard work will pay off, keep it up

[Amadaun]

Well, Andalay's thrown me head-first into learning level design and the CS basics class so I can help pick up a bit of the extra slack in this mod. My specialty is modeling and texturing and being an absent-minded artist. This has been rather an adventure.

I managed to clutter a house, though. I am far too proud of myself now.

[AndalayBay]

Actually Amadaun is really good at interior design. I've asked her to come up and do my house

From the mod stand-point, we're redoing a number of areas. But we're making good progress.

[Ed-VO]

After reading the introduction I couldn't resist giving it the "appropriate" VA treatment.

The Devs asked me if they could share it with you here. With the caveat that this is just for fun, here it is.

Dark Brotherhood Chronicles - The Awakening

[AndalayBay]

Thanks Edouard - that's priceless.

[Ed-VO]

I really enjoyed chewing the scenery on that trailer VO.

I needed some practice and wanted to see if I could put together something that could actually be used. It's still a little heavy, of course, but I think it's still in keeping with the subject.

There are a couple of rough spots but I needed the practice. It may not be any where near what you were thinking of but if you can work with it it might be fun.

I just can't get my voice to do that every day

Awakening trailer 2

[AndalayBay]

Time for an update. The biggest news on our front is that we have moved to a new host. I am now the proud owner of a bouncing baby gaming site called Dark Creations. Although I'm not sure it's a good idea to refer to a web site as "bouncing"...

In terms of the mod, we had a new scripter join the team and he's really helping with our progress. Awakening has 11 quests that make up the Main Quest and 10 Side Quests. We have completed the first three quests in the main quest and two side quests. All the level design is finished. We had a large number of areas that needed to be rebuilt. We have one area that needs to be "cluttered" and two caves that need to be rebuilt. We have been set back a bit by the move but still hope to release Awakening before Skyrim.

In case you are wondering, we did consider moving the project to TES Alliance but we also have a fan fiction area called The INN. We don't have The INN back up and running on the new site yet, but we have all the data and will get it loaded shortly.

Besides, now DarkRider and I can commiserate

[Amadaun]

And...ah...by fanfiction area, we mean Role-Playing Fanfiction area.

And by Role-Playing Fanfiction area, we mean mature Role-Playing Fanfiction area.

And by mature Role-Playing Fanfiction area, we mean...er...three years worth of writing done by people who worked on the DBC, now unleashed upon it, and we are not responsible for such things as bleeding eyes, unsettled dreams, the need for brain bleach, or a lifetime of mental scarring.

Er...I'm sorry, there was a point there.

[AndalayBay]

Time for an update. I've reworked the OP with more details, including a detailed progress report and new links. Our gallery is gradually being restored and we now have links to the magnificent soundtrack that Xae created for us. We are halfway through coding up the main quest and are still aiming to get this released before Skyrim. Everybody is going to be so busy playing all the Oblivion mods that get released just before Skyrim that they won't have time to play Skyrim

[AndalayBay]

Another update: we've gotten four more quests done, so 9 out of 11 in the main quest are done. Only two more to go and then the main quest will be done and we can release. We're still trying to get Awakening out before Skyrim, but it will be tight.

I updated the OP with out latest progress.

[AndalayBay]

Main quest line is done. Final testing will start later today. Updated OP with latest progress.

[AndalayBay]

Update on our current progress:

Beta testing is still underway. We are being very thorough and won't release until everything is working to our satisfaction. So we will not be able to release before Skyrim, obviously, but we do think we'll be able to release sometime on the weekend.

[The Vyper]

Update on our current progress:

Beta testing is still underway. We are being very thorough and won't release until everything is working to our satisfaction. So we will not be able to release before Skyrim, obviously, but we do think we'll be able to release sometime on the weekend.

That's some very welcome news! I'm looking forward to playing through this.

[AndalayBay]

Mods: Please close this thread.

Release thread coming soon!!

[greenwarden]

Closed per OP request.