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DANJB'S BOUNTIFUL LIST OF MOD IDEAS

PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:34 pm
by Chris Guerin
Hey guys,

I've been around on these forums and the Morrowind modding scene on and off for nearly 8 years now. Maybe you've heard of me or one of my 30 mods, but I suspect that most of you haven't, since most of my projects have been fairly small.

Morrowind is still one of my favourite games of all game, if not THE favourite, but in spite of that I haven't played it in a while (partly because I've reinstalled so many times and each time overwhelmed my installation with mods, so now I have a nearly unplayable game and a bunch of incompatible save games).

I haven't done any modding work in ages either, and I've finally come to realise that, in reality, I'm never going to be able to finish everything I had planned. While I do love modding, it is incredibly time-consuming, and the more mods I make the less freedom I find I have to make new ones, as the old ones often require updating.

Anyway, all of this is just a pre-amble to explain why I'm about to post all my unused / unfinished ideas. Even though I'll never be able to implement all of these personally, I'd love to see some of them come to fruition at the hands of this great community.

All I ask is that, if you take any of these ideas, let me know, so that I can share with you some more of my thoughts surrounding the idea, and so that if I ever start modding again, I know what's been done, and so that I can check out the result for myself. And if any of these ideas have already been done, please post a link to the existing mod.

So without further ado, here's the list!

Spoiler

All Gondola Ports

Similar to "All Boat Ports" but for the Gondoliers in Vivec, so that each Gondolier can take you to any canton with a Gondolier.

Arkngthand Expanded

Expands the Dwemer ruin of Arkngthand visited at the start of the Main Quest. Also see "Dwemer Ideas".

Auction House

Adds an Auction House where you can buy rare items and artefacts for a high price. The auctions are all done through dialogue (think Final Fantasy IX). Perhaps some mini-quests that allow you to talk the other buyers out of bidding for the item you want.

Start an auction by reading the Lot Book and telling the Auctioneer which item takes your interest (lot numbers appear as dialogue topics). Then take a seat (a chair activator that uses ForceGreeting) to begin the auction.

The Auctioneer starts the bidding. NPCs' bids are added to the dialog menu via the MessageBox command. These bids are fired by a script that uses some chance. With each bid, you can choose to keep quiet or raise the bid (a little, a fair bit, or a lot). If you keep raising, other bidders may get annoyed with you and try harder to out-bid you. You get 3 chances at each bid ("I hear 5000 gold... going... going... gone!") After the auction, the item disappears (or is given to the player) and the topic is removed. If you win a bid but can't afford it, you get kicked out (or possible you are given a day to raise the money).

The items up for auction - some are useful, some are not:

Spear of the Old Ones
Tales of the Bard
Blackened Coins
Dwemer Forgehammer
Ancient Amulet
Topaz Charm
Tribal Cauldron
Key to the Unknown
Witch's Blood
Ballista Bolt
Cloak of Shadows
Pelt of Polaris
The Wanderer's Robe
[Some useless items like designer clothing]

The player can also steal the Auctioneer's Gavel, which is a very rare (but probably not a very good) hammer.

Balmora Guild Teleporters

A small platform that acts as a teleporter to get between the Fighters' Guild and the Mages' Guild. I've seen mods that add doors but the building aren't joined so this makes more sense. Perhaps even a quest involving the Fighter's Guild getting suspicious of or annoyed by teleporter because it's too "magical".

The Balmora Watch

A new troop of guards has arrived in Balmora and you can work for them by completing a series of quests. First, though, you have to earn the trust of the Captain of the Guard by delivering a package to a nearby outpost. He tells you very clearly NOT to read the package, and if you read it, you fail the quest.

Blood Spatters when Injured

Makes the player drop blood spatters when you get hurt, using scripts.

Buried Treasure / The Great Morrowind Gold Rush

Talk to the Scout in Seyda Neen to hear about buried treasure. Get a shovel / pickaxe and someone you can use it to dig for treasure. Perhaps treasure is buried at 5 or 6 locations around the island, and when you dig it tells you approximately how close to are to the nearest treasure (think Chocobo Hot and Cold from Final Fantasy IX). Perhaps the shovel / pickaxe could also have a Detect Enchantment spell?

Charge Up Spells

A "focus" spell that, when cast, fortifies your Intelligenec / magic skills so that your next spell is super-effective.

Clear Your Name

Gives you the ability to clear your own name if you have a bounty (if the Thieves' Guild can do it, why can't you?) by sneaking into the Ministry of Justice and altering the records. I feel that this would add a whole new degree of freedom to the game.

The Ministry of Justice will be expanded with a new area, "Hall of Records". There are 4 different security areas for different levels of criminal:

Petty Criminal (Bounty of up to 200)
Lawbreaker (Bounty between 200 – 2000)
Grave Criminal (Bounty between 2000 – 10000)
Most Wanted (Bounty of over 10000)

In each area is a book, i.e. “Petty Criminals”, which you can activate to clear your name.

Security ideas:

Hounds
Statues that can detect the player
Loose floorboards (bits of wood that detect when the player stands on them and creak)
No-Chameleon and No-Invisibility gates
Patrolling guards

How to get past them:

Throw stones for distractions
Sneak around
Bluff?
Disguises?
Ensure the player can’t just stroll in there like he can for the MQ if he’s high up in the temple, etc.

Corprusarium Warden Expanded

I always thought the warden of the Corprusarium, Vistha-Kai, was a really cool and interesting, but sadly undeveloped, character. This mod would expand on him and his story and maybe add in a mini-game or some small quests surrounding him.

Cursed Chitin Club

Inspired by MWSFD, a cursed item that you can't unequip until you've completed some quest or killed a certain enemy.

Dedication

Shrines don't always give you blessings; you have to earn the gods' favour! Doing Temple quests, helping beggars, having high Willpower / Luck, making donations / offerings of ingredients, gems, gold and flowers, etc. will earn you favour, but you can't please every god at once. The more you please a god, the better the blessing you will get at his shrines.

Duel Spell / Power

Paralyse on target for 10 secs in a large area (paralyses all nearby creatures)
Cure Paralysis on target (except for the chosen target)

Dungeon Crawl Ideas

Morrowind had some great dungeon crawl locations, like the Urshilaku Burial Chamber and Kogoruhn. However, I was disappointed with a lot of the mods out there as many of them had godly loot or ridiculous enemies. I always wanted to make a dungeon crawl mod - just a place, like a cave or a tomb, packed with challenges, enemies, puzzles and balanced loot, all tied together with a simple plotline. Here are some ideas for such a dungeon crawl:

* A key that enables you to exit / re-enter the dungeon halfway through, like a sort of checkpoint (think "Brass Key" in Runescape)
* A room full of treasure that you can't actually get into, you can only see through the bars in the door (use telekinesis)
* Something that's not a key that behaves like a key, i.e. an Ash Statue
* A "tomb door" that slides downwards into the ground instead of opening on a hinge (think Diablo II)
* Also see "Fake Books" and "Labyrinth"

Different areas:

Dwemer
Daedric
Sewer
Tomb
Cave
Mine

The mine could be occupied by guards who check to make sure you're not trying to smuggle out any of their gems; hide them in a minecart to sneak them past the guards.

Dwemer Ideas

A furnace that can melt down items into scrap metal.

A Dwemer machine that can trade in scrap metal for Centurion Spider companions.

A Dwemer arsenal (machine) that can be used once a month (or used at the cost of Dwemer coins) to give any of the following:

* Dwemer turrets: drop these and watch them fire rapid bolts
* Dwemer bombs: throw these and they explode
* Dwemer detonators: drop it and run, then they explode (possibly triggered)
* Dwemer ballista: a very heavy misc item that, when dropped, becomes an in-place ballista. Walking up to it in the world puts you in first-person mode and equips you with the ballista, as if you're using it in place. When equipped, you cannot move, but it is essentially a (very slow-firing) lethal crossbow

Dwemer Subway System

I actually stole this from a comment on PES by sab liath on the mod "All Silt Strider Ports". This would be a Dwemer system of travel that connects every Dwemer ruin, but it would require a lot of work to get it up and running (missing cogs, gears, blocked tunnels, etc.) and a lot of work to learn how to use it.

Ethereal Items

Think Diablo II. Powerful items that cannot be repaired.

if ( onPCRepair == 1 )
return

Fake Books

Cursed / trapped books that sound like real books but will actually spring a trap to hurt you:

The Consultations of Prayer
Wives of the Saints
Brief History of the Empire v 5
Speckled Flora of Tamriel
The Western Provinces
The Affairs of Lizards
Varieties of Wraith
The Floors of the Spirit
Off Oblivion
The Unchanged Ones

Freerunning

Complete a rooftop course in Balmora that records your time. Set / beat records. Basically there would be a series of "checkpoints" that record your time when visited in order. These could potentially be picked up and moved, allowing the player to create their own course.

Frenzy

A barbarian weapon that does more damage with each hit, or possibly does more damage as your health gets lower. To implement the first idea, the weapon would have a "Cast on Strike" effect that puts a spell on the player. A script would detect this, remove the spell, and give the player a scripted ability, i.e. Fortify Strength. This would be repeated with each successful hit, allowing you to build up a combo. Getting hit resets the combo.

Godly Weapon

As part of a quest, get given a super powerful weapon, but you can only use it in a certain area and then it gets confiscated, or breaks, or whatever. I just think this would be fun, without being unbalanced because you couldn't keep the weapon forever. Inspired by Oblivion, where you get given an Akaviri Katana right at the start of the game but then it gets taken off you. It's fun while it lasts!

House Atop a Mushroom

Basically just a house on top of one of those giant Ascadian Isles mushrooms.

Improved Journal Entries

Add in some more hints to the journal entries for "Disappearance of the Dwarves" so that you can actually complete this quest without looking it up! Also add journal entries for "Threads of the Webspinner".

Jukebox

An in-game item that skips the current music track. This would work by playing a short, silent track when the item is used.

Labyrinth

A labyrinth filled with puzzles and moving walls. You have to get to the centre (for treasure!) while avoiding the deadly Minotaur (or something more lore-correct).

Legendary Heroes

Why is it that the only other adventurers you see in Morrowind are dead ones? Meet heroes like yourself randomly around the world and exchange items, spells and training.

Levelled Alchemy Apparatus

Better apparatus requires a higher Alchemy level. Stops players going straight to Caldera and stealing the Grandmaster's set.

Levelled Birthsigns

As you level up, you get new spells / abilities / powers, according to your birthsign.

The Magic Tree

This was a small idea for a quest that I haven't really thought through. It would surround an Orc called "Green Fingers" who resides by a lone tree, which he insists is a magic tree. Yeah. That's it.

Market Stalls

A minigame allowing you to steal from various market stalls around Morrowind, described http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1403615-wip-market-stalls/. You have to work your way up to the more advanced stalls (think "Thievery" in Runescape). I have started this mod but I don't know if I'll finish it, so message me if you're particularly interested in taking it over and we'll see :wink:

Mimics

Think "Mimic" in Final Fantasy IX. Basically these would be rare items (or just chests) that turn into monsters when you try to pick them up - a bit like cursed gold / gems in Daedric shrines but you don't get to keep the loot. They could even be added to creature Levelled Lists in certain areas; make a dummy creature that, when loaded, gets turned into a mimic chest / item by a script.

Morrowind Rejigged

Attempts to make Morrowind vaguely "new" again, by moving some of the more well-known items around and mixing up a few quests. Perhaps the Sword of White Woe is now found in Suran. Perhaps the Grandmaster's alchemy equipment is now in Dagon Fel. Pehaps Ajira wants Coda Flowers instead of Luminous Russula. You get the idea.

Mudcrab Quest

Well, I made a http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6556, so why not a quest for the Mudcrab Merchant? Help him become human (Cure Blight Disease?) in order to... I don't know, increase the amount of gold he has?

New Save System

I think this has been attempted a few times. Basically this mod would disable saving from the menu, and instead you save your game at "Save Journals", which can be found on the beds at inns, etc. The downside of this is that it disabled quick-keys, as a side-effect of disabling saving. Also what if you haven't saved the game but you suddenly need to go out? A solution to this would be "Save Crystals". These can be bought at Save Journals and are spent every time you load your saved game (since this can be detected by scripts).

Not-So-Royal Signet Ring

Nerfs the Royal Signet Ring from Tribunal. Multiple versions would be available:

* Keep the same effects but lower the magnitude of everything
* Change "Restore Health" to "Restore Magicka"
* Get rid of the "Restore Health" entirely
* Completely remove the ring's enchantment
* Change it to "Cast When Used", and make the effects a bit better

Open-Ended Morrowind

Ensure all quests finish correctly if you kill the quest-giver.

Patients is a Virtue

Ok, so the name is a bad pun that I just thought of, but this would be a series of quests surrounding a peculiar scientist. Basically he wants you to capture an Ash Sleeper, so that he can experiment on it and essentially try and "cure" the curse of the 6th house. I thought this could have a really interesting and quite dark plot; perhaps at one point the Ash Sleeper speaks to you under the effect of some medicine, and you discover the horrors that he has seen. Possible ending is that the scientist himself becomes an Ash Sleeper and you have to put him down, and it turns out that the curse can never be cured after all, despite some positive results. The scientist would send you on a lot of errands to fetch herbs, etc. but these would be short and simple (like Ajira's "fetch me a ceramic bowl" quest), just to get you out of the building to allow the plot to develop. Obviously the building in question would have to be away from any major cities, perhaps near Ghostgate.

Quest Notes

For anyone without the expansions; when you get given a quest, a note gets added to your inventory. Use these notes to keep track of which quests you have completed and which quests are active.

Rescue Caius

Remember how Caius suddenly gets called away to the Imperial City? I always thought that was suspicious. In this mod, you discover that he has been captured, and you have to rescue him.

Secret Library

Revolving wall in Vivec's library that leads to a secret area if you take the right book (see "Fake Books").

Skill Capes

I wrote about this http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1253055-req-cape-textures/. Get a cape for becoming Neverarine / head of a guild / level 100 in any skill. Each cape would have a high enchantment value and a scripted enchantment.

Skill Guilds

The guilds in Morrowind will pretty much accept anyone. This mod would add a new kind of "guild" - one that you can only join when you have excelled in a given skill, or when your reputation gets sufficiently high (think Runescape-style guilds). These guilds would have certain privileges, like training rooms to help you take your skill the rest of the way to 100.

Sleep-on-able Dwemer Beds

Make those comfortable-looking iron Dwemer bed statics into useable bed activators.

Special Monsters

Think Diablo II. Encounter random "specials", i.e. super-hard, uniquely-coloured creatures that have a unique name and special abiltiies. I did this a bit with my "http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=9160" mod but it could be extended to other creatures.

Spellbook Shields

Equip a spellbook in place of a shield - it doesn't do much in the way of protecting you, but it gives you a new spell to use while equipped!

Super Comfy Pillow Mod

I think at the moment the "Super Comfy Pillow" does nothing except pop up a message when you go to sleep? This mod would make it at least slightly functional; if you sleep on the Super Comfy Pillow, you are fully rested in just one hour (WakeUpPC and manually heal him).

Tarhiel Reward Mod

If you somehow save Tarhiel with a slowfall spell, he will sell you restocking Scrolls of Icarian Flight.

Taxation

“Only two things are certain – death and taxes.”

Get taxed a percentage of gold dependending on your level. If you don't pay, get a bounty.

Teleportation Spells

I liked the idea of http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=1787 (another Runescape-inspired one), that lets you buy spells to teleport to any town in Morrowind. However, that mod lets you buy all the spells in one place. My idea was for you to be able to find a teleport spell / scroll in each town that lets you teleport back there in the future; so you at least have to walk there once first (a bit like fast-travel in Oblivion)!

Teleportation Poles

2 poles that you can stick in the ground anywhere (outdoors) in Morrowind. Activating one teleports you to the other. You can move them around as much as you like.

Temple Supply Chest

A supply chest for the Temple, since the Fighters' Guild and Mages' Guild have them. Similar to my http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=5450.

Travelling Trader

Think Stiltzkin from Final Fantasy IX. A travelling trader would appear at various points in the main quest and offer you a trade. These trades would get increasingly pricey but the items would get better and better each time. The trader only appears at his next location if you agree to his trade. You get some reward if you see him all the way to the end of his journey.

True Undead

Make Undead creatures get damaged by healing spells.

Universal Slave Key

1000 gold each from slavers - let's you free any slave, 1-use.


This isn't actually all of them but it's most of the good ones. I'd love to hear your thoughts (seriously, this took me like 2 hours to write)!

Danjb