Deeza's Plan for the Abacean Isles release

[Deeza]

With the old Valenwood project now dead, it's good to see people supporting my plan to salvage something from it by releasing the Abacean Isles. I'm hereby forming a new team to make the finishing touches to these islands and see through the release of this mod.

I have asked both drmccoy and Danny to help with the implementation of the islands' quests, and I'm glad to see that both of you wanted to help out. With both of you on the case this should get done even quicker.

The following jobs remain to be done:

1. Adding leveled creature spawning lists to the islands. I don't know if this has already been done, but even if it has, it should be checked to see if it works OK.

2. Creating NPCs for the main quest - I will put up descriptions soon.

3. Creating a new item for the main quest - the Wrecking-Stone, an artefact that's key to the plot, needs a suitable model. This could be a retexture of an existing asset. Also, one of the coral meshes needs to be converted into an item that can be picked up (to make a quest item called "Heart Coral")

4. Creating quest locations. These are:

The Wreck Site: the beach on the smallest island, on the side furthest from the other 2 islands. This is where the Imperial ship carrying the player is wrecked, so the beach is covered with broken wood, barrels, crates and corpses.
The Clearing of Bones: just outside the main Bosmer village, this is where they dump all their rubbish. The clearing floor is bloodstained and it's full of human bones - also used pots, etc.
Volus' Cave: a small cave that's got beds and weapon supplies, the headquarters for the "pirate" faction in the main quest. I think the islands have their own cave tileset which could be used?
The Heart Coral Reef - a large reef made from piled rocks covered with coral meshes deep under water off the island coast. Heart Coral can be harvested here.
The Wrecking Caves - sealed until the conclusion of the main quest. A large cave system, the centre of which is filled with Ayleid-style ruins built by the ancient Aldmer - this is where the Wrecking-Stone is found

5. Scripting and dialogue for the main quest, according to the story (revised edition will soon be posted)

6. Adding in extra quests, as many as we can without making the islands too crowded.

This isn't a very big list as you can see. So, what would people like to do?

THE MASTER FILE, MESHES AND TEXTURES CAN BE FOUND HERE:
http://files.filefront.com/Valenwood+Isl...einfo.html

[drmccoy]

I'll claim 2 and 5. I can help out with the leveled creatures , 4. and 6. aswell. What I'll not be able to do is 3. Never have been into those kindof things.

[Deeza]

OK, could you do number 1 (the creatures) first, then start working on the dungeons. Those are the two most important for now.

Please save all your changes into a separate .esp file dependent on the .esm so that I can merge them together with other modders' contributions later.

I think the islands have a new "Spider Cave" tileset to make the dungeons from. Don't make entrances to the dungeons yet, we'll need to decide later where to put them depending on how many in total there will be.

Also, would it be OK to post up screenshots of your progress?

[drmccoy]

Of course it'd be ok. I'm downloading the masterfile and take a look at the LeveledMonsters. If they haven't been created yet, I'll do it and place em. I'll post my progress as soon as I have some to show. I'll probably need a little time to get into the esm.

[Deeza]

Great! That's what I like to see!

I just remembered, another thing that needs to be added:

The Ship - this is how the player gets to the islands. You'll need to make two versions:

1. A ship made from the standard Imperial ship tileset at the Anvil docks. It doesn't need an interior, but the exterior has to look like it's stocked up for a long sea voyage.

2. Create a new worldspace and set its weather to constant thunderstorm. Use the Imperial shipwreck mesh, have the ship tilting on its side, crates and broken wood everywhere. Also make an interior, half-flooded with water, everything messed up and broken, one or two corpses floating. This is where the player "wakes up" during the storm in the main quest.

The ship's name is "the Dragoneye"

Remember to save all the stuff you make in a separate .esp file. :goodjob:

[drmccoy]

Filefront is being a real bitch atm. It's not letting me open the site at all, not at any of my machines, neither at my laptop.Is it, maybe, uploaded somewhere else aswell?

-I'll pickup on the ship while i'm waiting for filefront to stop being a meanie. It doesn't have to be dependent on the VW.esm, does it?

[Deeza]

No, it uses only vanilla assets, so it should be OK.

I will try re-hosting the file a megaupload

[drmccoy]

Alright. Erm. Should there be any NPCs on the ship? If yes, any dialogue added to them? Or any scripts? Shouldn't there be an interior if there is in the "at sea"-scenario?

[Deeza]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AW5MB24D

Just uploaded it to megaupload.

Yes, yes, and yes to all your questions. I am in the middle of writing out the details you'll need right now.

[drmccoy]

Great. Im already done with the ship at anvil. It's full of crates and barrels, all ready to take off i guess, just waiting for a special passenger to arrive