I second this.

Sorry, I didn't see the replies until now. Yes, I'm definitely still working on this, although it's been slower than I would like. The story is still developing as I'm going along and the more I work with it and come up with new ideas the more things I have to go back and change, lol. In the end, I think I've decided that this mod will hopefully (and ultimately) be a mod that tells a great story about 2 old friends, their tragedies and triumphs of each of their lives, and one of loss and redemption. It's sort of becoming much more than simply cleaning up and rebuilding the town. I want to tell a good story most importantly that's tragic, but heartwarming as well. (I wish I were a better writer though, lol.)

But yes, it's definitely still being built. I'm also keeping my eye on the navmesh bug issue as that's also VERY critical to the success of this project. I will eventually be seeking out voice actors and some artists for either some custom textures for unique weapons and armor, or a few new items as rewards. I'm still tossing around ideas as side quests as well as new dungeons and expansion of a couple of vanilla dungeons. But I don't want it to become a mindless dungeon crawl/fetch quest.

Live Another Life does make some changed for alternate starts. Lots of people use that. Might want to ask Arthmoor about compatibility and any work arounds dealing with Helgen's main quest scripting. He spent a lot of time figuring that out.

TBH, "Negotiating" with a brigand like a bandit would not work out any better than just offing them. They'll see you have gold, and they'll want to take more by force. That's what bandits do. These are not civilized people we're talking about here.

What's seriously lacking in this game is fear of reputation TBH. You're the Dragon Freakin' Born! At especially higher levels, people should be quaking in their boots if they've earned your ire.

Yep, already talked to Arthmoor and they should be completely compatible as far as we both can tell. Players using his mod still have Helgen destroyed, just at a different time than the vanilla. Since his mod only delays that, and mine picks up afterwards, they should work together just fine. (crosses fingers) Thanks for the info though.

And this is exactly the problem I'm having with my story. And I'm still trying to make it all work and not be totally lame. My character "Valerius" that's now a leader of a bandit group was going to have the option of killing him, but I'm re-thinking that now because so much of the story is lost if the player kills him. So I'm thinking that the player has to take a special item to him that is a gift his murdered wife gave him long ago as a gesture of peace from my other main character named "Marcus". The player has to use this gift as a means to get through the other bandits to the leader guy to talk to. The whole premise is that after the Dominion dogs murdered his wife, he went sort of crazy and went on a vigilante justice crusade murdering as many of them as he could. They ultimately caught him and locked him away. But Marcus busted him out of the Dominion prison, but they haven't seen each other since then which was many years ago. Deep into my quest, I want the Thalmor to hijack Valerius while he was on the road to Riverwood, and take him deep into a cave somewhere. The player will have to help Marcus and Korst (another character) go rescue him. One of them will die during the battle while the other saves his life, but I haven't decided which one I'm going to kill yet, but I'm leaning towards Marcus as that seems a bit more tragic and a little more shocking since he is ultimately a goody two shoes.

Does all of this sound totally lame or is it a decent story?

It has the makings of a decent story to me.

Slight qualifier - things should be compatible as they are now. All I'm doing is manipulating the same disabler controls as the main quest.

Possibly not so later on if I follow through on plans to allow access to the non-destroyed form of Helgen and rework the flow of MQ101.

Yes, your story is quite good so far. I'd certainly enjoy playing through that.

Thanks for the heads up Arthmoor. Perhaps we could stay in touch through this process and try to stay compatible with one another? Were you thinking about never destroying Helgen at all in your upcoming mod? That's cool, and obviously anyone who wants to play my mod and also uses your mod would have to understand that they would need a new character without your alt start so the fort actually does get destroyed. Please keep me informed, and thanks again!

Will http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Haming return to the town? He seems to be only survivor of the town.(Both his parents were killed.) Also his grandfather is a hunter if you looking for hunters for the town. Although http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Gunnar_Stone-Eye could have survived as well as he was the one protecting Haming.

That’s definitely my plan, although they won’t move to Helgen until very late in the reconstruction after their house is built. I haven’t checked their packages, but I’m hoping I can just add an alias for them to switch their AI to Helgen when it’s ready. I’m also hoping to make it a little quest to help Gunnar escort the boy to his new home. I doubt I’ll be messing much with Froki Whetted-Blade because I don’t want to take a chance on bugging up his quest. (I feel the less you mess with vanilla characters forms the better off you are.) Although I may decide to make completing Froki’s questline a requirement to escorting Gunnar and Haming back to Helgen.

Would be nice still to have the option to kill him anyway though. I would choose not to kill him with most of my characters, but I always feel the more options the better - maybe there can be some hints elsewhere (either in dialogue from other characters, in-game notes, or simply with the quest objective text) saying that if you don't kill him you can get the possibility of a greater reward.

I miss the days of Morrowind where I could kill any NPC, even if it meant messing up the ability to finish quests - even the main quest - "with this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed".

This seems like an interesting concept, but I have to ask: Will it be compatible with quickstart mods such as Live Another Life and Dimes' Quick Start?

At the moment it is compatible with Live Another Life.

If at some point the quickstart mods actually run the part of MQ101 (Unbound) that destroys the fort they should be compatible. However, if they leave Helgen in it's original vanilla state there is no need for my mod because it it's not destroyed, you can't rebuild it.

OK, I thought I’d post up another progress thread. I think I’ve gotten the backstory where I want it, and have most of Act 1 fleshed out. There is a fairly significant change I’d like some feedback on. So, please give me your thoughts.

I hope this doesn’t disappoint you guys, but instead of your regular Skyrim bandits, I believe I’m going to create a new faction for Valerius and gang. I was never really all that happy with the bandit affiliation in the first place and I was really only using that because of the bandits that take over the fort after the opening of the game. Also, because of events that will take place later in my mod, I believe this new faction will just work better in my story in terms of setup. (Much thanks to Vereta at TESA for this idea.)

So, the new faction will be that of an underground group of what are essentially spies and assassins whose sole mission is to disrupt and kill any and all Thalmor wherever they can find them. Due to the growing presence of Thalmor in Skyrim they have also come to the area because that’s where the “action” is. But to hide their true identity, they are sort of posing as bandits. Like I say, writing it like this really sets up a big plot twist in Act 3, as somebody will be betrayed by someone they trusted, and someone is going to die. (More on that a little later)

But by necessity, this will eliminate the whole negotiation dialog with Valerius and also the ability to kill him. He has just become such an important character in this story that to allow him to be killed would basically ruin the entire story of the mod. I know that will not make some happy, but I just need it to be this way.

What do you think? I REALLY need a good name for this faction if anyone can help. Something catchy like the “Nightbrethren” or whatever.

I think you have a really good idea for that. As far a a name. How about "Helgen's Rangers" or something like that. Not to snazzy but also not obviously anti Thalmor.

OK, researching some lore I came up with a couple of good prospects. I really want this to be very lore friendly, so here’s what I’ve found. Basically after the White-Gold Concordat was signed:


So I could add into my backstory for Valerius that after he escaped from prison, he and his men escaped to Hammerfell and joined the Redguard in their war with the Thalmor. After the Treaty of Stros M'kai, Valerius and his men once again went underground, but by this time they had acquired a few Redguard allies who joined in their covert operations. It seems to me that Redguards would be the obvious choice of ally for anyone wanting to form an underground resistance to the Thalmor.

Now, looking through Redguard history, I found this:


So, the base of Hattu Mountain was where they made their final stand against their enemy. This was their “point of no return” so to speak. It was either death or victory at this point. It was their Alamo. So, this underground resistance is essentially the last hope for the people of Tamriel to defeat the Thalmor just like Hattu was their last stand. So, what about “The Keepers of Hattu” as the name for my faction?

Others I thought about are “Remnant of Ansei” http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Ansei , although that one seems a little too Redguard specific. And I also thought about “The Keepers of The Shehai” http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Frandar_Hunding

I will most definitely have a unique Shehai weapon as a reward, and at least a little backstory on the craft.