Elder Scrolls 6 - Some Great Ideas'

I have been looking around feverishly for news of the next Elder Scrolls game and rumours pointed to an announcement at the Game Awards 2014, unfortunately nothing was confirmed.

Fans are expecting it to be set in Argonia, which makes me think of Morrowing and the swampy areas south of Balmora. I loved the Rethan Manor the player could own there, it was the best of the 3 in my opinion.

In my search I cam across some good ideas, by johnnyk82 on gamefaqs.com web forum, for improvements to Skyrim which I list below with my comments in blue.

  1. Rework the skill/leveling/character creation system. Right now, there is very little difference between the races, because other than their innate powers (which seem to have been toned down), their skill bonuses can easily be made up for rather quickly. I also think it's lame that any character can become a master at everything. What I would do is bring back major and minor skills - Make major skills have a cap of 100, minor skills have a cap of 50 and miscellaneous skills have a cap of 25. I would also change the racial skill bonuses to be increases in the caps, not an increase in the starting skill level (so potentially you could go over 100). I agree with this idea, the races should not be so similar that it really does not matter who you play as.

So basically, when you create a character, before you even pick your race, all skills will have a cap of 25. Then you pick your race and you'd get your level cap bonuses, then you pick your major and minor skills to get those level cap bonuses.

2. As a tie-in to the first point, I want the racial powers/abilities/disadvantages/trade-offs to be more pronounced. Again definitely want the risk/reward to be greater.

3. As others have mentioned, make the guilds more exclusive - i.e. Need skill requirements to advance/join and can't join "conflicting" guilds. I think the Morrowind style here is the way to go, you had to be a certain level in some skills before you could join a House or Guild and if you were  a member of one Faction you could not join some of the others.

4. Give actual benefits to being in a guild, other than equipment. For example, if they bring back spell crafting, make it so you have to be a member of the mages guild to use it (similar to Oblivion, prior to the wizard's tower DLC).

5. Rework enchanting so that it doesn't make looting obsolete. Maybe add more lootable items that have multiple enchantments on them but keep the enchanting skill to just one enchantment per item.
Early in the game when your enchanting skill is low then looting items is viable but later on I never bothered as I could make enchantments way better myself than anything in the game.

6. Get rid of leveled loot, or make it so that it either automatically improves with your level after you acquire it, or so that you can use smithing to improve it. If they don't want to do either of those, add stat/level requirements to items to eliminate the "rush to find all of the best items at low level" problem. This was a disappointment in Skyrim, you completed a quest and got a reward which was near useless.

7. Improve Destruction magic so that it doesn't become obsolete. Never really used this, probably why!

8. Add an "evil" main quest line - i.e. You can join the enemy YES PLEASE! Or a choice in your major decisions which have more implications in the game. The Stormcloak vs Imperials did not feel like you were part of something that moved you, at least for me anyway. I went back after completing the quest and re-loaded an earlier save and played the the game like that. I preferred Whiterun the way it was.

9. A light spell that you can toggle on and off and just takes up a reserve of your magicka. I get tired of having to recast "candlelight" all the time. The lighting was good enough to see most things in the dark which took away lots of realism and nerves...lol

10. Come up with alternate designs of all equipment that can only be created with the smithing skill.
  This shouldn't be that difficult for Bethesda to include in the game and would be nice.

What do you think?

Fishermans Cottage - Revised

 

After I finished this MOD I thought about the house for a long while and decided that a double story house was a bit too ostentatious for a plain old fisherman. I went and redid the MOD entirely and used a single story house and simpler furnishings inside.

Here are the views from the outside of the cottage.

Next are some views from the porch.

 The fishing boat!

The work station, where all the daily catch is prepared.

These are the interior shots.

When the Player finds the cottage he will come across the note on the side table next to the statue of Talos explaining the situation.

I may decide to change it later on and add a quest-line where the Player can follow some clues in the letter and find the treasure for themselves.

Fishermans Cottage

Here are some views of the exterior of the Cottage from different angles.

The three above are from the front and side.

The picture above is from the back.

Next up are some views the 'Player' will see from the porch and front door of the cottage

This picture shows the view from the 'working table' where the Fisherman cleans his daily catch.

And this picture is a side view showing the drying rack where the fish are cured for long term storage.

Last but most important, the fishing boat, without which the Fisherman could not survive.

I love this spot in Skyrim, right by the water edge, views of the mountain behind Riverwood and of course Riverwood.

I am very glad to be back to modding

Fishermans Cottage

 

Here are some pictures of the interior of the cottage. Upstairs basic and homely.

Most important item is your treasure chest!

Above is the landing area with nice touches reflecting the fisherman owners taste.

Below is the lower level showing your meal table, cooking and storage areas.

 

I am happy with the way this came out, neat and uncomplicated.

Next I will show the exterior in more detail.

Fishermans Cottage

So after a long time I ventured back to the Creation Kit to create a small MOD mainly to pick up on my skills again, the time away has left my skills very rusty.

I want to do something small and actually looked for a good tutorial that would cover the basics and a bit more. I found an excellent one with some nice tips on the TES Alliance website.

I decided on a basic house MOD for a player just starting out in the game, although I know those will be pretty rare these days seeing Skyrim has been around for so long now.

Enter the Fishermans Cottage MOD.

I placed the Cottage just across from Riverwood and the basic back-story is that the fisherman owner left in search of treasure after coming across a Map hidden in some chest at the bottom of the river while out fishing one day.

The Player enters the cottage and finds the Fisherman's Journal with an explanation and voila! you can stay until he returns...which may or may not happen depending on how far I want the MOD to go.

The MOD is Lore friendly and reflects the Players rank at the beginning of the game. You get ample storage, cooking and some basics inside and outside a tanning rack and wood chopping block with more fishing accessories. No over the top stuff here! however it is a nice place to rest up and store your goodies with proximity to Riverwood to trade and learn Smithing and Alchemy.

Next up, see how this turns out.

The Death of a MOD

After spending an awful amount of hours creating this MOD I discovered today that I had somehow deleted almost and entire interior cell on the main game. Falkreath Corpse Farm interior was gone!!..save for a couple of markers and a door.

I cant copy and paste the interior back in and I have no idea how to restore this as I have already saved over this MOD many times and I don't know when I did this. I recall having a serious issue with the CK a while back when everything was duplicated in the interior cells and I guess I thought I was in my MOD when I deleted the duplicates but I must have been in the original game..idiot!

I is a bitter blow to see the Mod die now, just when I was getting to the interesting stuff. Creating the rest of the NPC's, designing their schedules and quests etc. Now I wont get to see my MOD come to life :(

A lesson I hope not to repeat on the next one!

Hope to be back soon with something else..stay tuned.

Sigrun Dal - MOD - Still Navmeshing

Unfortunately I am have had no time to dedicate to my MOD for some weeks now and so that means the Navmesh is not yet completed.

Hopefully I can get some time this week and progress posts can continue.

Sigrun Dal - MOD - Navmesh

 

I have been doing lots of my least favourite part of modding, Navmesh!

I am working on the exterior for now and it is going very slowly, will probably be a while before I am done. I am trying to motivate myself to complete this asap because without it I cant really move on to creating NPC's and have them move around the valley creating that realistic feel to the MOD.

Stay tuned is all I can say!

Sigrun Dal - MOD - More Landscaping

So I have been spending loads of time adding landscape features to make this side of the valley interesting.

Adding trees and rocks etc

A view through the Guard House towards the Barrow.

Interesting features near the Barrow.

Views from the top of the Barrow looking over the water towards the other side of the valley.

Once I am finished the landscaping it will be time to start working on my least favourite part ..the Navmesh!