Hello folks,

I've just wanted to make sure if I imagine this right - first of all, I'm not a pro when it comes up to the previous SDKs of TES, but gathered experience with modding through SDKs like the one from Warcraft 3 and several other strategy games. Yet I know that these are quite different from such as SDKs like TES, I still want to make some old ideas come true. There's quite some lore on it, merged from several short stories I wrote in the past three years.

Tales of Mythradea

This will be the title of my Total Conversion / Overhaul. The plot forms around a hero who's lost his / her Memories through a magic potion (If I'll be able, I'm going to add custom animations to show this sequence in the beginning) and has to get them back - as the player progress there will be a bigger thing slowly revealed. Yet I can't give you much informations on that, hence there probably will be changes and I also don't want to spoil much.

Let's say, first of all you have to redeem your name - whatever this may be. With all your amnesia, you'll just get a title which people will call you (I don't have any specific informations on this one, since the player needs the ability to chose his gender - so this title needs to be neutral) - and also your memory. Second of all you will have to face the bigger threat approaching the world of Mythradea.

What is Mythradea like?

I'm not going to say that Mythradea will be so much different than the most stuff you've probably seen before. I did'nt want to reinvent the wheel, but I also didn't want to actually overuse stuff we've seen more than enough, like Orcs, Dwarfs, Elves and so on - it's just overused, no matter how good these are. So, if everything will work out fine, you'll see some different races. There will be different locations, such as

• Rest of the gods - The first place where the gods actually entered the mortal realm. Imagine this place like a vulcano but without lava. The clouds above this place seem to burn, they are called the "endlight". (Sorry for my english, I'm from Germany)
  
• Thamea and Elowin - Two Citys, once miles away from each other, slowly grew and merged into each other - people fight over the term of either accept or banish mages from their city. There's a wide area of uninhabited buildings where both cities are trying to overcome the other.
  
• The Waterstreet - most likely described as a small path which leads through large amounts of water. It's a result of magic.

These are just examples for the world of Mythradea.

Can I contribute?

Of course you can! I imagined Mythradea as a huge world where you can actually add almost anything somehow fitting to the world. Later on you'll get all the files you need to imagine your own part of Mythradea.

Sounds nice, but what Features will I face?

First of, as said in the beginning, it's a complete new world, your character will get a name (not Dragonblood or Dovakhin), people will call you.

• New Races
  
• Better emotions. Almost any part of TES lacked this point in my opinion. Even though lots of adventures are somewhat individual, I want to add more emotions and more situations which will try to make you react in some emotional way. Whether this be a scary house full of ghosts, relationships with characters, maddening passages - I want your emotions - and a world that will show you more than the usual "Ah ma gosh, my wifes Dead. Bleh, go away." (Maybe an issue of the german version, but I hope to successfully add animations.)
  
• Voiced Mainchar (Still unsure - I will take my focus on voice acting at the very end of the development, so maybe there will be a way to add your voice to push everything a little more to immersion)
  
• Bigger Cities with more inhabitants - and a bigger geography. I want real forests, real cities - and much of stuff to discover!
  
• Better crafting system - I don't want you to level up like a madman by just forging thousands of iron daggers. You will need to forge better stuff and I want to make crafting more rewarding for you - which will also require exploration of the world you'll face.
  
• Bonuses for Activities - No, no more agility - but imagine things like getting ore. How about a nice little reward for pickaxing 50 ore veins - like less stamina drain for two-handed weapons or running in heavy armor?
  
• No more possibility to get through the world via the stables. Even though it's somewhat nice to be able to travel to every big city in the very beginning, I want this world to feel somewhat limited because of different things. Bandits will be the very least thing you'll think of.
  
• No shouts - No Dovakhin, No Shouts. But maybe I'll convert them into spells
  
• No Questmarks. I don't want to harass people - I want them to discover the world. Listen to the NPC who gave you the quest. Look up your questlog. Think about the route you'll take. Uncovered locations will still get a fast-travel option for the less patient players.
  
• Maybe travel per ship. This was just some idea, but who wouldn't like some norse feeling? Vikings FTW.
  
• You'll get a party - This doesn't mean these NPCs will steadily run around with you and **** **** up, but you'll get some NPCs who will travel with you via the mainquest. They get personality, history, characteristics - guys you just want to be with you. You can still order them to follow you if you are in need of help.
  
• New Monsters in various sizes- I just leave this here: J?rmungandr
  
• Dialogue-System will be more like the one from morrowind - stopping time so you won't miss anything, a big window with text - and maybe voice acting. Everything to give you the time of discovery. I don't want players to just run by and disapprove the invested time to make this. (even though you can just fastclick whatever you want.)
  
• The quests will alter depending on your "class" (Focus on stealth, magic or melee), gender and race. This will be the most complex part but it would also grant great replayability. What if you befriend some merchant with your human but will be attacked if you're not a human? Or what if you have to bribe a guard to gain access to the castle, while you can simply flirt with him if you're a woman?
  
• Speechcraft will add a "flirt"-option. Your character will gain little benefits (or maybe mischiefs) and ease their way by simply.. well, you know - NOT THAT! - Imagine a female bard with lots of coin in their pocket. Maybe she'll give you a free meal. If it will be possible, this will also be a factor of the race you've chosen.

Races

As said in the beginning, no more Dwarves, Elves, Orcs and stuff. Yes, I will use models of Skyrim and perhaps you will face orcs even though they are not orcs - at least in this world. Sounds crazy, but it's also just hypothetical.

• Humans - Yep, as always. Maybe I'll remove the bretons, don't know yet. You'll face "groups" like the Tremorians, Mjurshin and more.
  
• Werewolfs - Don't have a fitting name for them yet, but maybe they will become their own race.
  
• Khajit - I'm pretty sure on this one. Of course they'll get a different name, but they will be a pretty big threat for the human race.
  
• Argonian - Won't be playable, but they will be part of the bigger plot - and mostly hostile to everyone.
  
• Orcs - Won't be playable as well.
  
• Spriggan - Perhaps not playable, but will be a race you'll see. These "Brethrén" will get four legs if i'm able to change these.
  
• Altmer - Will be called "Manorra" - and will definately shock you with their place of living.
  
• Flimks - Very strange creatures with some animal extremeties - they speak "gibberish" very likely - their language is not based on words, but on the meaning and the purpose of your sentence. Maybe "I want to eat seven year old fish-sticks!" could mean "Greetings, good sir!" - Lots of fun included!

These are just some races - their can and maybe will be others you can face. I want a big world with lots of opportunities and lots of stuff to discover. You may roam the world freely, but I want you also to be addicted to the main plot. So, yep, lot's of work will be included. If you have suggestions, feel free to share them.

Regards

Hainstille

Best of luck. Such total conversions are very difficult to get off the ground and you will be committed to years of hard slog, mostly alone. However if you have the sticking power dont let others knock your confidence. I had plenty of comments when I first started my Mesogea mod, the usual "It will never see release" and "it will be gone in a year".

Several years later, despite the occasional work and study break, I am still slogging away at it and the content is now extensive.

Stick with it.

Thanks!

Of course it will take some time, especially if I'm going to work on my own. Guess I'll do it that way, since it's more the way fitting for my style. Will be quite a lot of work, but I love creating things - and if that's the way to express my ideas and make them come to life - hell yes, I'll do it - but I won't post news all the time to make people actually want to get it and then all of a sudden it won't be released or something like that. Don't want to disappoint anyone.

I figure it's better to say it now than later, and I'm sorry to be a negative nancy, but if you're going to do this thing it's far better to go in with your eyes open.

The overwhelming majority of these things never get finished. Yours is different, you say? Yeah, they all do. Go through the Oblivion or Morrowind mod forums and see the littered corpses of so many TC projects that were "the one that's going to succeed".
It will involve years of slog during which very few people will be interested because most expect you to fail; again because most people do. Not because they're weak or lazy but just because it's really really hard and because peoples' lives change over such a long time.
If you for whatever reason don't manage to finish it, when you stop you will have completely wasted all the hard work of yourself and anyone else you dragged along with you. And people will sigh because they've seen from what you've done so far that if you'd just focused on something smaller, you could have pulled off something really remarkable that actually got released.

And frankly, your "bigger cities and bigger geography" talk sets off massive massive massive alarm bells. Skyrim was the work of a huge team of full-time professionals (backed up by a big team of people to create their assets for them), and it contains a staggering amount of work from a huge number of people. I think you're thinking much too big, to be honest.
So here's my strong suggestion to you:

Build one of your cities in its city worldspace and finish it. Properly finish it, with all the interiors done, all the NPCs done (with dialogue and pathing and schedules), some city-based quests done, everything. Do not even think about starting your exterior continent worldspace until this is done. I mean it. Don't. Build a dungeon underneath the city if you like but do not start that exterior world. Finish your city and polish it up to the mirror shine of something you would want to release, and then release it. You will now have something complete and awesome for all your labours, and it may only have taken 3-6 months. People will play it and enjoy it, give feedback and probably offer to help you continue with it. That's awesome; and what's more, you can just stick it straight into your new continent wherever you want, just like that, easy. You'll also have discovered that plonking down a few houses and trees and rocks etc is a tiny part of the whole affair, and that all the 'little' things you thought would be trivial are the things that take up 90% of your time, and are coincidentally the least fun. You will only then be in a position to start building your exterior worldspace with a realistic understanding of exactly how much work it all entails - and if that means your continent takes on more modest proportions, that's cool! Hell, stick your city on a small island and call it a day if you want, you've already achieved something massive. Better to be smaller and more detailed and actually finished, and you won't have lost any work in the resize.

Again, I'm sorry to be so negative, but I would hate to see you fail because you bit off more than you could chew, and I hate seeing these big ideas going nowhere. You can of course do whatever you like, and I wish you the best with it, but I strongly urge you to do it in more manageable self-contained chunks.

I think you will quickly realize making an entire game is a bit much to take on for a single person who isn't even experienced with the TES construction set. Nehrim was made by 20 or so experienced modders over the course of a few years.

Sounds like a good idea, and I would be happy to offer my assistance in the modding process if you would like any help, my main strength is in scripting and story/quest writing.

You dont have to finish the entire world yourself. I never planned on completely filling Mesogea, just providing enough content, quests, etc to give a solid storyline that will interest others. The vanilla real estate is never very much and if you can plan and devlop a much larger world with more open space for people to create in, others will gradually become interested.

However, this is a big but! But dont expect to finish that kind of content alone within the space of a few months or a year etc. Mesogea has taken years and though occasional help has come along (and much appreciated at that) it will really be well after Skyrims release that I can port everything across and hope to release something more than a modders free canvas, but something interesting to play with.

Youve got to be committed.

Go for it. You can listen to advice if it fits your vision, but just have fun with it and do it YOUR WAY and don't worry too much about being sensible. You'll learn so much.


When I picked up Morrowind back in early 2003, it was the construction kit that mostly drew me to the game, but my first dabblings in it actually intimdated me enough that it took many months before I could really get into it in earnest. I plugged on anyway learning little bits about creating a house or replacing textures, did a rather ambitious if somewhat silly & whimsical "http://morrowind4kids.com/fcm/fantasycolor.html" world retexture, and finally realized what I really wanted to do was make up my own little make-believe world, from scratch. I started a total conversion called Morrowind4Kids, worked on it for about 6-14 hours a day for nearly 2 years and -- as many people predicted -- I never quite did finish the entire thing. But I got as far as making almost the entire worldspace as well as a playable "first chapter" demo (my plan was to realease it in "chapters" that slowly expanded the worldspace as i went further into the storyline). You can see some screenshots etc from my old, now-dead site here: http://morrowind4kids.com

I never once regretted "biting off more than I could chew", and even now if I were to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I had a marvelous time working on it. I had fun making http://morrowind4kids.com/desert.html and http://morrowind4kids.com/icelands.html and http://morrowind4kids.com/sealife.html and more. Learned some things that helped me on other later, smaller, more "practical" mods, many of which are used by a lot of people today. But, MW4K was always something very personal for me, far more than Wood Bows and Leather Armors or other more sensible mods I went on to make later. Mostly I just got lost in my own little world for a time, and for me, that makes that chapter of my life something that will always be special to me. There's some that will think it is a waste of time to start a project without some certainty you'll finish it, but I disagree. To me, the journey has always been more fun than reaching the destination. and the process of creating more intriguing than actually finishing a project.

If you're too sensible to want to waste your time like that, you probably shouldn't be wasting your time on games anyway. You might as well paint the garage and have something to show for your time.