Tes3Mod:Mod Ideas

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Almost historical now, here are some ideas from the early days of Morrowind modding about what sort of mods might be created.

Contents 1 General Content 1.1 Books 1.2 Modernwind 2 GamePlay 2.1 Dual Wielding 2.2 Grapple Hook/Rope 2.3 Small/Large Battles 2.4 Strategy Elements 2.5 100% Hit Chance 3 Races 3.1 True Dwarves 4 Factions 4.1 Join Unjoinable Factions 4.2 Join Sixth House 4.3 Join Commona Tong 5 Create a Guild 6 Quests 6.1 War Quest 6.2 General Quests 6.3 Smugglers Quest 6.4 Spy Quest 6.5 Thief Quests 6.6 Stronghold Quests 6.7 Assassins Creed? 7 Locations 7.1 Clockwork City expansion 7.2 The Fiendlord's Keep 8 Game Management 8.1 Item Location 8.2 Spells List

[edit] General Content

There's tons that could be added just a general content, everything from simple items all the way up to complete cities or even other continents (people have talked about recreating the other provinces in addition to the island of Vvardenfell, which is certainly possible). A good large-scale type project would be to create a complete town with unique NPCs, items, quests, dialogues, etc... If several people add their own town the original 30 towns in the game could increase dramatically, greatly increasing the replayability of the game (by the time you've fully explored the 30 someone's bound to have made a few more for you). Dungeons could similarily to added to increase the size and experience of the game world. For the capable 3D artists, there are of course appropriately tons of custom models one can add to the game (weapons, armour, furniture, misc items, etc...) as well as the more difficult character models (more player races, NPCs, monsters, etc...). Guild guides, silt striders, boats, etc. could easily connect these new cities/continents/islands to the original game content.

[edit] Books

One of the things the editor allows you is to create your own books to add to the game. Books can include pictures and presumably a limited amount of formatting to allow some interesting possibilities. Some have mentioned the addition of the books found in Daggerfall to Morrowind which is a good idea. Books can be added full of hints and tips or merely information about the game. Instead of visiting a web site to grab information you could download a library of in-game books which you could buy and carry around with you for easy access. Imagine adventuring somewhere and spotting a creature you've never seen before. You crack open your 'Nivec's Bestiary Guide to Morrowind' to find out what it is, how dangerous, and how it can best be defeated (etc...). This allows you to stay in character more easily than ALT-TABBing and starting your browser for the same information and could be a neat aspect of the game. Similarly, a lot of the Elder Scrolls fiction work out there could be added as books to game (complete with pictures of course).

[edit] Modernwind

It would be interesting to see Morrowind remade in a more modern or even futuristic setting. The Blades would be President Uriel Septim's secret service, perhaps given a more fitting name. Guilds would have a more modernized version called Clubs. Guards would be police officers and members of a national armed forces. Fargoth wants you to find his missing Ipod. Don't bother clearing out a Sixth House base; some well-placed C4 will do. Bows and arrows are outdated, Modernwind heroes storm in with firearms. Dark Brotherhood? Morag Tong? Nah, just send in a well-trained and well-armed hitman in a stereotypical tuxedo. Of course, the buildings, towns and clothes would change a lot too. This would be a daunting Total Conversion mod, but would be interesting in the end.

Mod in progress; ModernWind

[edit] GamePlay

[edit] Dual Wielding

Dual wielding one-handed weapons would be a nice alternative to using a shield.

[edit] Grapple Hook/Rope

Grapple hook or improvement to the game's existing rope. We are still not entirely sure what the game's default implementation of rope or grapples will be, if any, but it would certainly be fun to play a thief type character with them. Several different types of grapple hooks could be offered with various ranges, speeds, strengths, and rewind rates for a variety of uses.

[edit] Small/Large Battles

A would really like to see something where the PC is involved in a larger group of people. This could be something small like being one of 4 guards to guard something overnight or during a trip all the way up to something large like being involved in a large assault on an orcish dungeon. The smaller type quests could probably be done easily by merely adding some friendly NPCs with perhaps some specific scripting/dialogue. The larger quests involve more a limit of the game engine and the user's computer than anything else. Presumably if you had 100 (or more) orcs/soldiers on the screen at any time the frame rate would slow to a veritable crawl. One possible way around this is to create some low polygonal models of soldiers and orcs. For instance, a typical character model is said to be around the 5000 faces range. If you could make a passable model with, say, 500 faces instead, you would basically be allowing 10x the number of NPCs at the same frame rate (though this is just a guess at this point). If the editor allows it you could have various levels of detail, i.e., nearby creatures would use a high-res model while farther away creatures would use a low-res model, or even limit the drawing of farther away creatures all together. Something like this will have to be tested once the game released, but the possibilities are quite alluring. If you could command a small to large army, that would be so cool! You could command the soldiers to make an assault on, say, Balmora. You could command the soldiers to guard you, or fight. But either way, that would be cool.

[edit] Strategy Elements

Several people have mentioned the desire to insert more strategy type elements into the game. Things like being able to run a province/area the way one might do in a Civilization type game (although not necessarily as detailed of course). You could start off by acquiring the lordship (or whatever the Dunmer call it) of a small, unimportant village. There would be various ways of doing this such as assassinating the current leader and taking his place, assault the town and claim leadership, bribe or blackmail the current leader/government to leave or allow you to come in, perform good campaigning around the town and have the people 'vote' you in...and many others if you cared to take the time to think about it (the more the merrier as ultimately you could be taking over all the towns in Morrowind, about 30, always good to have lots of variety). Once in the governor position for the town you would have to perform certain duties such as set and enforce a tax rate (collector duty?), ensure the town is properly guarded, ensure the town has enough food and required supplies, ensure trade routes are maintained and opened between neighbouring towns, maintaining and improving the condition of the town (roads, houses, planting flowers, etc...), etc..., etc.... Perhaps the larger the town the more things you need to take care of and the more often you need to. If you failed on your duties the town people would become upset and eventually run you out of town and possibly even hire bounty on your head (if you were really bad). I suppose that alternatively, instead of being the benevolent governor you could be tyrannical and use the people's utter fear of you to stay in power as well (or perhaps a little of both). As you acquire more and more territory the benefits increase (such as gold and other tributes, fame, reputation, bigger castle, etc...). Exactly how detailed you can make it will probably depend mostly on exactly what the editor will allow you to do. Just imagine being 'inside' a game of Civilization for the possibilities of the experience.

To some extent this already exists in mods such as the Farming Mod http://mwmodders.com/files/FM_4.0.zip

[edit] 100% Hit Chance

Rather than having to mentally roleplay the dodges and various skills of combat, some users wouldo like to see a mod where, as in Oblivion, you damage your enemy if your weapon touches them, instead of missing when being in VERY close combat, and arrows hit if you aim that well. Of course, the same goes for the enemy. And within Magic, it would be the same as for arrows.

• This mod adds this effect, but also disables your magic effects view.

[edit] Races

[edit] True Dwarves

I for one would like to see the addition of true dwarves to the game (both as a NPC and a playable race). By true dwarves I mean those short, stocky people who like to quaff large amounts of ale and hack at peoples knees with axes, hammers, or other people. To differentiate from the Dwemer, who are also known commonly as dwarves, we could name them possibly 'True Dwarves', 'Stone Dwarves', 'Mountain Dwarves', 'Mountain Men', etc... I like the idea of having them originate from the original Dwemer (who were actually quite elvish in appearance) but were trapped underground when Vvardenfell erupted around 1E 668. In the over 3000 years since then they have evolved more into the typical RPG dwarf by the small spaces, mining, etc... They would have large cities far underground which have gone unnoticed by the surface population. Well, there's a whole lot which could be done along this vein. The language barrier should be a problem so you have to find/make/buy a magical item which allows you to talk and listen to the Mountain Dwarves.

[edit] Factions

[edit] Join Unjoinable Factions

Possible factions to join include:

• The Imperial Knights: You could become a Paladin, as a Paladin you could do anything. You could have wicked awesome armor and run around Vvardenfell like a ninny.
• The Tamriel Crusaders: Crusaders do quests (though more war like) to help the temple; their camps can be found in the red mountain region.
• The Ashlanders: As an Ashlander, you could raise your rank from being like a slave, all the way to be an Ashkhan.
  • I think you join that in the main quest.
• The Census and Excise faction: You could be a tax collector, or a guard, maybe just protect the money in the Census building.
• The Ordinators: Become a lowly recruit arresting lawbreakers in Vivec or go on missions to attack Daedric shrines. Eventually become one of Her Hands in Tribunal.

[edit] Join Sixth House

It would be nice if you could join the Sixth House. It would be like an alternate storyline with a different ending. Even members of the Sixth House want you to join in the game. Daggerfall had six alternate endings, Morrowind might be better with one too. It would be cool to do quests for Dagoth Ur and all the ash vampires. You could advance in it like you do for any other Great House. You could even be offered the chance to became an ash vampire. Quest would include obtaining Wraithguard from Vivec and helping to completing the Akulakhan. Then once Akulakhan is completed, you could lead him, along with Dagoth and your armies, you could lead them into cities and kill the people who worship the false gods, (problem: a lot of people, mostly everybody, worship Vvec, Sotha Sil, and Almalexia.

• A mod has been made for this: Sixth House – Planet Elder Scrolls

• There's also this: the Great House Dagoth mod – Planet Elder Scrolls.

[edit] Join Commona Tong

The faction is already present in the game's scripting, and are involved heavily in the Thieves Guild and Hlaalu quests. How Orvas Dren's removal in the Hlaalu Hortator Quest and Hlaalu final quest would be handled are unknown.

[edit] Create a Guild

A mod that is based on your class. Build guildhalls across Vvardenfell and maybe on Solstheim and Mournhold. Recruit NPC's to act as stewards while deciding which factions are allies or enemies. Once your guild has 20 members, a rival guild starts and you must lead your guild to victory!

Adventurer's/scouts' guild, in which you were to go survey the area for reputation points, steal significant items from Daedric shrines, and the like.

Rogue Guild: Maybe have something like the Dark Brotherhood but for Morrowind.

[edit] Quests

[edit] War Quest

A new quest that would allow you to start/participate in a full out battle, with many troops on either side. another option would be to create an "arena" area, where a player could bring up a menu that would allow you to choose who fights in the battle, and how many fight.There could be a battle between the great houses.

[edit] General Quests

With the editor easy to use, there's no reason for lots of people to make many quests with a great range of variety. One of the downfalls of Daggerfall was that the random quests would become repetitive after a time, you would see and perform basically the same quest over and over. The more quests that are available, the longer it will take for one to begin to see the quests repeat. Hopefully people can make enough good quality quests that one would never notice them to repeat. Some general quest ideas are:

• Guard the house/item from thieves. The thieves must be killed or captured and if a minimum value of items were stolen, the quest is a failure (perhaps have to pay a certain percentage of their failure if you fail miserably or don't show at all). Reward could be a percentage of the value guarded depending on the trouble encountered and success.
• Guard the person(s) from assassins. Failure would be if the person was killed or perhaps badly wounded. True failure may result in the person or their family sending an assassin after you for revenge. Success could be gold and reputation in proportion to how important the person was and how difficult the task.
• Escort a person or shipment from Point A to B (either in town or between towns), a minimum number of people or items must survive to the destination in order to succeed. You could be hired as merely one of many guards for an important shipment, perhaps the sole guard, or hired as the chief security and have to arrange and hire additional guards and equipment as necessary. The reward would be reputation, gold, and perhaps equipment related to the difficulty of the guarding and how much resistance was met. Failure could mean lower reputation and possibly having to pay for lost equipment and funeral arrangements. The length of the route could vary to very short such as guarding a money shipment between banks in town or longer between nearby villages.
• Find some sort of information (research, reading books, finding books, asking experts and people in town, etc...). You might be hired by a local mage to find some information on a herb from a town far away because he has no time/desire to travel. Or perhaps by someone who is looking for a lost relative in an area.
• Explore/map out a particular region, such as an unexplored mine or cavern or an uninhabited island just off the coast (if such a type of quest is even possible).
• Follow someone to track their movements and report on them. Find out where they are going, who they meet with etc... Failure could come if the person spots you following them (could be somehow partially based on stealth).
• Solve the crime (murder, thievery, fraud, kidnapping, disturbances, assault, etc...). A crime has occurred and the local guards ask you to help solve it due to your reputation (or just because they don't want to be bothered to do it themselves). Examine the crime scene, interview witnesses and suspects, research clues and track the criminals, etc... Success comes if you successfully capture or kill the true guilty parties. Failure might be if you took too long or implicated/killed an innocent person.
• Be hired as a goon/enforcer, collecting money, enacting revenge, being a hit man, etc... For the good aligned player the evil parties could be killed or turned in.

[edit] Smugglers Quest

A quest where you have been asked by a local merchant to deliver a few crates of goods to another town (perhaps far away). Upon inspection the crates seem to just contain stone carvings of various designs. What you don't know is that the carvings are hollow and filled with some illegal substance (perhaps moon sugar) which the shopkeeper is having you smuggle to his associates. During the course of travelling you may be interrupted by guards and caught in the act (random perhaps, allowing you do the job a few times before you are arrested). By proclaiming your innocence and swearing to help track the shopkeeper and his associates you are let go, at least temporarily. Now it becomes a matter of attempting to track the shopkeeper and friends. Once you find them, do you turn them in, or demand to get in on the action and help them smuggle more goods?

[edit] Spy Quest

A quest where you are given the job of infiltrating a powerful persons home in order to spy on them and report what they are up to. For instance, perhaps a mage guild quest to spy on a mage who has been reported to have been performing 'questionable' rituals. You might be able to sneak and catch a quick peek, thief like, or attempt to become hired temporarily as one of his servants. The person and his companions would be far too powerful for you to take on alone so you must be careful not to get caught. The quest could progress somewhat as you found more information. For example, first you might find out he has a secret passage to a laboratory in his house/keep. You could continue to find out more info, a piece at a time, reporting back to the guild. The guild might have you take on a more active role such as stealing items or otherwise disrupt his progress until more help can arrive. Perhaps you could even find out that it's the quest giver who is up to no good by having you spy and disrupt the mage! Perhaps you have the option of becoming a double agent and telling the person who you are supposed to spy on what's going on.

[edit] Thief Quests

I'm sure the game will come with much better thief quests than those in Daggerfall, hopefully at least something comparable to the game play the Thief and Thief II (though we are told the engine is not as specifically designed for stealth as the Thief game engine). I thoroughly enjoyed the game-play in the Thief games and hope someone is able to recreate those type of quests in Morrowind. One of the many good points of the Thief levels is that usually there were a variety of methods of completing the objectives. Do you knock out or kill guards or avoid them altogether? Which route to take, up high with a few rope arrows (a definite must), or sneak along the shadows at ground level to find an open window? Do you check out other areas for extra loot or do you go quickly in and out for the primary objectives? All of these allows one to replay the same map/quest several times without it becoming repetitive.

[edit] Stronghold Quests

I would love to see a quest where you have to find a magical item, that when cast in certain locations, will reveal new hidden cities of outcasts. More quests, new armors and weapons, the works.

It would also be nice to assemble your own army(ies) at one of the ancient Dunmer Strongholds around the island, the ones with the Propylon Chambers. You would occasionally need to help defend them against attack, and the attacks would happen on game time: you're awakened by a messenger in your sleep, for example, finding that the sewers leading to the Red Mountain have been infested with Ash creatures (before the end of the main quest) or that a coastal stronghold is maintaining a deadlock with Akaviri forces (Khajiiti dressed up in Dragonscale?). If you fail to arrive in time, or if your soldiers are too inadequately equipped, you'd have to take the stronghold all over again, and since you're the only one who has the Indices, you have to do so on your own. Certain things, like the Akaviri takeover, might affect all of Vvardenfell if not dealt with.

[edit] Assassins Creed?

I would very much like to see a quest built out like an Assassins Creed level. For example, you have to kill the king or leader of a small town or village. You can do it anyway you like and clues and hints to help you are spread around the city. After that, by the use of some extreme Athletics and Acrobatics, you escape, say, via rooftops.

Of course, some new ways to lower your bounty will have to be added (like changing clothes or killing witnesses) and ways to combat these effects (e.g: if your bounty hits 2500, wanted posters will appear over the cities. If no one sees your identity, your fine. If they do, god save you!)

[edit] Locations

[edit] Clockwork City expansion

Sotha Sil's place was awesome, but it could have had more to it. Like an actual city filled with passive Fabricants or robots. Perhaps include a quest to find out what led Sotha Sil to insanity.

Sotha did not go insane. Almalexia went insane and killed Sotha Sil. Still the idea of having Sotha Sil (the city) be more than a massive dungeon is interesting.

[edit] The Fiendlord's Keep

I thought of this playing Oblivion, but it could work for either, but I figured how badass (and possible) it is to have a mod for Chrono Trigger fans involving Magus' lair from said game. Wouldn't have to go all out on the dungeon itself (that'd be hard) but for at least Magus I think the shields and absorb spells would substitute well for his barriers in game, and other little intricacies.

[edit] Game Management

[edit] Item Location

Considering the vast clutter of rare and unique items that the PC obtains in the course of game play - most of it obscure and unexplained when found - and the necessity of setting most of it down so he can proceed with the rest of the game - the player desperately needs a record kept of their locations. Automated entries should be silently added to the Journal when the player sets down an item that some future quest will demand.

For example, once he finally realizes what Gambolpuddy, Azura's Star, or Indrele's Deed is for, he wants to know what in Tamriel he did with it. Is it in Morvayn Manor, Caius' House, Sadrith Mora Mage's Guild or... he hopes to Red Mountain he didn't have Azura's Star in his possession when he delivered his Strong Souls to Llunella, but if he did, he wants to know that before he chases all over Morrowind looking for it!

[edit] Spells List

The list of spells in the Spells Panel may be arranged purely alphabetically, grouped by item type, or by criteria that isn't readily apparent. Unfortunately, the Spells Panel apparently may switch between these arrangements gratuitously, any time the user chooses a spell from the list. Additionally, when the user selects one of a number of identical items on the list, the Spells Panel may move that particular item to the top of the group of identical items in the list. If there is a method by which the user may intentionally choose how the Spell Panel displays the list of spells, or even make it stop rearranging the list, the method isn't readily apparent.

This baffles the new user to no end, and may make the game unplayable, once he obtains a number of spells or enchanted items; under the influence of this bafflement, some inexperienced users even report that their enchanted items disappear, because they remember exactly where on the list an item was, and it is no longer there. (Very likely, the Spells Panel would rearrange the list, and the desired item would return to the remembered location, if only the user would select another item; however, the user is unlikely to select an item, since he hasn't found the one he wants.)

Once an experienced user has gathered a vast clutter of spells and enchanted items, even the knowledge that the Spells Panel rearranges the list at whim may only allow him know the desired item is still there, but leave him wondering where it's listed; even experienced users report that their enchanted items disappear, because after searching the list multiple times, they still can't find the desired item, and settle for one they can find.

Users desperately need some way to stabilize the Spells Panel, so that once it displays the list of spells in a comprehensible manner, the user can force it to remain in that arrangement. A method for users to intentionally rearrange the list would also be a nice option.