Yar. That's more of a fundamental problem with the way the main quest is set up and shoved in your face, though, and I guess a limitation of the engine. I didn't intentionally mean to shoot down all your ideas, honest! I also didn't mean to type "in my opinion" as much as I did. Oops.

This looks absolutely fantastic--a good alternative to Arrive by Ship, which is great too but lacks some of the RP possibilities of this mod. I might have to restart Oblivion all over again, just for this mod.



This is a great twist on the MQ, too. So much for prophecy, eh Uriel?

What an excellent idea. Any chance of making a simple, basic beginning for Mesogea?

Nice mod! Thanks for sharing.

This is good - we need more alternative beginnings, especially the one idea about being shipwrecked at start sounds good - you also should have a quest from the Emperor to recover a certain personal letter that was not delivered to the Queen of Daggerf.. err.. wrong game I'll definitely try this, if I ever start a new character (I have never finished the MQ or guild quests ever and I've been playing since 2006! This current 200+ hour character is my only hope before Skyrim)

Once I have started a new game, I usually uninstall the alternative beginning mod to get more esp space. Do you see a problem with this approach?

Anyone know of a messy way to simply... re-add my player to the Necromancer faction after being removed from it? If I could at least figure -that- much out...

This is a great idea! How about a "you were the sole survivor of a battle" start. More or less you start in a field surrounded by your dead comrades and enemies (let's say daedra).

Just throwin one out there.

Arrive by Ship has served me well, but this sounds very interesting. Looks like my next character will start a prisoner again.
Thanks! :foodndrink:

This is a sweet idea.

How about - a royalty option? You start as nobility/a count from some area/castle/city with a large monetary advantage but not much else.

Not sure lone survivor would work out all that well since there isn't much of a justification prior to the main quest for there to even be a battle of that magnitude. Besides, there's engine limitations on the number of corpses you could spread around on such a battlefield.

The added shipwreck option seems to be working properly, hope you guys like to swim because I didn't set you up as having washed up on shore. You've got to make your own way to shore I also decided not to be a meanie and make the ship start sinking after being in it long enough.

Amusing side note. The guy who comes to find you to start the Cybiades mod is very efficient at his job. I've been jumped by him in every check of the shipwreck start. Which is a bit awkward to say the least.

@anithinks: If you're going to remove the mod after using it, make sure you've at least picked up the letter from the dead adventurer or there won't be any way to trigger the MQ at all.

Very interesting! I'm going to check this one out. Have not tried any alternative beginnings yet

One question though: OBSE 20, is that really necessary or will OBSE 19b work just as well?

Regards,
Dodgy Bob

Can't say for certain if 0019b will work. The mod was constructed entirely with 0020 loaded and my understanding is that you need the version of OBSE running that a mod was compiled with. You can always try it but I can't guarantee success and won't support using it on an older OBSE version. 0020 is nearly out of beta though so it's not a huge issue right now.

That would be funny actually I can just see the complaints: I can't even get out of the damned shipwreck without dying!!!

Hey Arthmoor!


I've been playing around with the Oblivion CS a bit more... and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it... but I was curious about something.

Looking through the scripting you've done for this mod, I can find parts of it which make sense. For instance, in your Necromancer start script... I can find the part where it directly references the two factions of necromancers which have to be made 'non-hostile' for this beginning to work. Naturally, if I wanted to keep the player in said factions... I would have to be looking for something in the script that sets these options up.

Now, you said that you get removed from the factions as soon as you leave the dungeon. However, as hard as I have been looking, I can't actually find the bit of scripting which detects when the player leaves the dungeon and removes them from the necromancer factions. How did you do this?

If I could find and remove that little bit of scripting, I could feasibly make it so that my character is able to remain a member indefinitely.

If I could do that, then I could feasibly figure out how to create some optional 'beginnings' of my own without creating additional headache for you. Of course, the damn scripting is still making my head spin... but I'm gonna stare at this damn code until either it breaks... or I do!

Look for ALBChargenQuestScript. This is the background script that monitors some of the starts to see to it they finish out properly.

Partway down you'll see these two lines:
Player.SetFactionRank NecromancerFaction -1
Player.SetFactionRank NecromancerDungeon -1

If you remove those, then you will remain in those factions indefinitely. Or, until a mod like ABR that temp-adds you to the faction for one of its quests comes along and removes you from it afterward.

That's at least part of what I'm talking about with complications. Those factions are assumed to be NPC and creature only. The player is never expected to be in them at all and there's really no telling how the game or even other mods will react to you being in them.

Hrrm!

Well, this poses a new... interesting idea! What if one were to create a 'Friend of' faction, like they did for Fallout 3 and New Vegas? What if instead of being directly added to the enemy faction, you were instead made a part of a faction which essentially marked you as their ally. Then it would be a matter of lowering disposition towards the player greatly, to perhaps reflect your notorious/illicit status.

For instance, as a member of the Marauders faction... you would likely get attacked on-sight by most everyone. But as a member of the MarauderAllyFaction... you -don't- get attacked by marauders, but at the cost of oh... -35 disposition with everyone else.

Plus, because they would technically be their own unique factions... the risk for incompatibility is less, too, right?


Or hell, is that even possible with the Oblivion CS? I'm rubbish with this. >.< My scripting ability is essentially cannibalism. I can sometimes replicate functions I have seen elsewhere... but I'm not at all knowledgeable as to what the limitations are.

That could be done too, but then it means that you'd have to leave the mod installed permanently for that faction to stick. That's not really an issue if you aren't close to the mod limit but I would prefer to keep that option open universally.

Making an ally faction handle itself properly with "good" NPCs would mean having to track down all the ones that could potentially be involved, and there's a lot of them.

And again, a reason I would be interested in doing so for myself... rather than being so presumptuous as to expect you to go out of your way to humor me! It was kind enough of you, already, to even have considered making it so I could play a marauder. Why put extra work on you when, in the end, I could very possibly do it myself if I were willing to invest the time in it.

Considering I haven't seen anyone -else- clamoring out for these options... I assume I'm in a niche minority, anyways. I should probably get used to doing these sorts of things for myself! :banghead: Even if it does make my brain bleed just thinking about it.

Heh. Consider it a learning opportunity. Who knows, you may soon join the ranks of those who mod the game more than they play it. It made our brains bleed at first too

Congrats on the release, Arthmoor. Yet again, a must-have mod from you.

I always love alternative beginnings and even more so when the "real" main character has died and I'm just a nobody in the world. In fact, I believe the last time I made a game with the sewer tutorial was when I first got the game.

Awesome! I can't wait for it, I might make a new character soon, though admittedly I've been using Wyrebash to port the same face over and over again.

As for your sidenote, Edward Pellew of Tears of the Fiend seems to have the same amazing efficiency as long as you sleep on a bed that isn't scripted. It was the worst in Skingrad though, having been interrupted by Lucien Lachance, Dion, and Pellew one after the other.

In OBSE20's case it is backward compatible in the sense that if you haven't used any features new to OSBE20, the mod will work just as well for players using OBSE19.

This is entirely dependent on what goes on in the inside of OBSE, and a mod compliled with OBSE19 can never be used with OBSE18, but there's no such problem from 19 to 20.

Does it need to be set around a large battle? TES IV already scales everything down, so scale the battle site down too!
You could begin as a member of the Blades, sole survivor of a party of six or seven Blades in a recent battle against trolls or ogres etc. You'd begin with Blades equipment and could be placed pretty much anywhere as a starting location.
Or maybe again as a member of the Blades, just survived a battle with a group of Mythic Dawn agents, and you found plans detailing the assassination of the emperor, and must race back to the Imperial City before it's too late (...it is). You'd begin somewhere nearish to Lake Arrius.
Or you could be a lowly Kvatch soldier, who survived the beginning of the siege of Kvatch, and is sent by Savlian Matius to inform the emperor of the fall of Kvatch. You'd begin with Kvatch guard uniform and the standard equipment held by any Kvatch guard, and you'd get a quest to head to the Elder Council to tell the emperor.
Or just some random adventurer from a party which got wiped out in a cave.

I think both of these are really fantastic ideas.

I second this - starting inside of Kvatch would be pretty interesting. Not sure if that would involve altering Jaufre or Martins dialog or not.

Also, thanks for putting the shipwrecked suggestion in, Arthmoor. I'm sure it will be real sweet.