assuming that a good interface font is used, do you believe it's possible (and good):
to add actual descriptions to items (ala NWN/Planescape);
to add descriptions to part of the scenery (again, like planescape or eternal darkness)

bump in order to gain insight
I had actually more ideas, but I can't write them right now

To me it sounds rather anti-immersive. But maybe a picture of the sort of thing you mean would help?

well, item descriptions means that rather than simply having "restores 10 pts of health" under the restore health potion it would say: "restore 10 pts of health" + "This vial is full of a red, dense fluid. It shifts as I move and makes me feel slightly nauseated as I look at it."

Oh, only when you look at it in the inventory? I see. Yes, that sounds nice.

lol I'm an old school RPG gamer, educated with Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment and D&D general it's something I miss in the Elder scrolls games

and before anyone can complain: I know there are books in this game that tell the story of items and general lore. that still does not quite satisfy me

how do you feel about follower interaction between themselves and during conversations (PC with another npc)?

Ah ... now I too see what you mean

I agree that - especially if you are old-school - items in game lack an "in character" description. I think the main issue would be whether you can come up with enough original "in charcater descriptions" to satisfy the large number of items that exist in the game world (there are like 5 or 6 supplement health potions, alone).

But yes, this is something that is "missing" and I would enjoy having ... Although it is going to be very other-mod unfriendly. If anyone adds a new item, or changes an existing item ... Your mod would not cope with that addition/change ... I would need to think how one might technically achieve what you want to achieve in a way that is useful to people who play with other mods ... (maybe by using keywords?)


Followers: And I see what you are driving at here too. More rounded out Followers would have been great. And it is possible to build very customised Followers. But the issue here is that Voice-Acting is a must (I am encountering this issue, with my own stuff, right now).

• Making a (unique) fully customised Follower would require a lot of dialogue - But it is technically achieveable (technically, quite easy, I believe)
  
• Customising the existing Followers would mean either replacing all of their dialogue (so the same job as above) or finding a Voice Actor who can very closely mimic the existing voice

So; yes, more detailed/customised Followers would be fantastic ... but would also be a large undertaking (there is a quite-famous MOD for Oblivion that was the creation of a "fully-fledged" Follower ... but I imagine it took a great deal of time and effort to accomplish).

(An interesting topic, and much food for thought )

The reason for those othe games having descriptions of scenes and objects is the drawing not being so detailed. It's a need. In the case of TES in general and Skyrim in particular, you can see the scene in 1st person with great detail. Which in my opinion would make adding descriptions redundant and sometimes contradictory (if the description didn't fit well with what the player is seing).

yep, Ruined tail's tale: it worked good even witnout a lot of dialogue but I mean also party banter (ala Dragon Age or Baldur's gate) and interactions of followers with npcs, how much you think of this is possible?
with the exception of party banter, as in Vanilla skyrim only 1 follower is available

Intra-party banter and follower-NPC interactions are certainly possible. The mod I've been working on has both of these, also more http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/images/11450-1-1333651228.jpg http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/images/11450-1-1330373129.jpg. It's mostly a matter of scenes and story manager events: if follower A and follower B are both playerteammates and not in wait mode then periodically there is a random chance of a one of several possible scenes being played between the two; if actor A is a teammate and a certain location is entered with NPC B in the same cell--like a store with a shopkeeper--then there is a chance of a scene playing between them (the shopkeeper might greet the follower instead of the player); etc.

thank you, it's helpful, someday I'll ask you more info on this (tackling 2 exams together atm so now I can't)
of course, this would need subtitles ON, without a voice-over (like Ruined tail's tale was).

there should also be an option that prevents "exit dialogue with ESC" feature

That may depend on what you mean by follower. Certainly as coded in the Vanilla game only one is available ... but as a MOD I think something is possible (if not done already!?)

You could (easily, but very time consuming) write a Follower that reacted to every plant, tree, river, fort, cave and other-NPC in the game world. And react in lots of different ways (not just speach). That ate, drank, slept and ... did other stuff ... not to mention its own quests and whatever else.

The Khajiit caravans ineract with each other - in Scene's - in the Vanilla game. And it should be possible to allow player control/interaction with similiar sized groups.

The question isn't really, what's technically possible? Its how much imagination/talent, and how much time, some one has to commit to such a project.

well it was a reasonable question... ES games have always been focused on SP, so some things could have simply been overlooked

are the options you mentioned very script-intensive?

Some are, some are not.

Getting a Follower to react to things isn't particularly intensive. Some can be done with StoryManager, trapping a particular event and having a Quest (and its scripts/aliases) do their stuff in response. And there is a post above ^^^ where someone has increased the options for random conversations between a follower and NPC. It's not really easy, but it is easier than a lot of stuff that has been done (like sailable boats!)

The system caters to many events, which can be trapped and reacted to in many different ways ... The biggest issue is the lack of Voiced Dialogue ... I was suprised how poor the subtitles options came across, if that is all a character has ... And it was worse if a vanilla character with dialogue went to subtitles-only for modded speeches.

To do this well, you would have to use Voice ... and on vanilla characters that would be a big problem.

thanks

well, I'm a fan of no voiced dialogue, so Fuz do Roh could work nicely once it's updated and bugfixed a bit. in a mod, VA is what comes last, when everything is ready, so not a too big concert atm.

would those functions alter (read: lower) performance?

I like where this is going.

If they were poorly implemented then, yes, very much so. If well implemented then not so much ... That said, if you were to get extremely detailed for every NPC then you would start to see a hit ... But just for Followers (in the main) you should not. And a description of Items (and so on) is no hit at all.

And if you are happy with no-voice then the implementation is much easier (or, at least, much less time consuming).

I have a follower that sleeps/eats, originally in the most comical of moments ("DRAGON!" ... "Hold on, I'm busy eating this loaf of bread!") ... but I think I managed to settle that down, now. So now I'm trying to get it to hire a bed in an inn when the PC does ... That's proving a little bit tricky (but I'll get there, I think)

would the load be on the gpu or the cpu?
can I ask you to share your progress? I am doing exams atm but I still would like to learn.

Load is CPU (well, if you have a fancy gpu and have the right things enabled, I think Skyrim is capable of shifting some of the CPU workload to the GPU? ... but mainly CPU load). Only gfx are intensive GPU.

As far as sharing ... I'm doing lots of bits and pieces to the custom follower I have created ... Opportunities for it to make more remarks, have conversations with merchants (nicked that idea from someone else on here, I'm ashamed to say ) and - as I said - trying to get them to go sleep, rather standing over my "hotel bed" staring at me the whole night (gives me the creeps to find them still there in the morning!)

So only a little bit of what I am doing is relevant to you. But a custom follower is a good place to start, if and when you do have the time, I think.

double post.

lol from who?
merchants and other npcs, think this:

thalmor wizard: Elven supremacy is the only way!
lydia; the only way OUT for you, long-haired freak.
thalmor wizard: how dare you insolent brutish woman!
player: enough you two!

a sort of "interactive" banter

I was thinking of getting it to murder the annoying General Goods guy in whiterun, after the 12th visit, or something .... but yeah, that kind of thing

we are on the same wavelength

before I forget: would any of these functions require the SKSE?