Tag Archives: Valenwood

April 23, 2025 · 21:08

Curse you to Oblivion

Yup, I went there. Well not really. I still have to buy the game and I was able to get half of it. Hopefully the other half in 3-4 days. You see, we are talking about The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion remastered. It was the reason I bought the Xbox360 in 2006 and I never regretted it.

To be honest I spend over 1000 hours in that game (it might have been 2000), Together with Fallout 3, I have banked the better part of 5000 hours and they were wonderful. So when I got wind of a remastered version of Oblivion, I just leaped at the optional chance to get back into that game. So I got up this morning at 01:00 to see the YouTube video and it was marvelous. This version was made by Virtuos, a massive undertaking and a well made one (as far as I can tell). Like all RPG’s, I saw a far amount of glitches in this game. I am talking about glitches, not bugs. The glitches do not matter, the game is a wonderful result. I already saw that there were new looks and parts in the game that are actually new. The environment comes from Unreal engine 5, the voices are mostly the same, but it might have imagined this, but it seems that Sir Patrick Steward added a few dialogues to this and it is well received.

The artwork has been preserved and is seen in a few places, giving it additional tone to the game. As I see it, you need to retrain yourself as this is not a Skyrim version, so there are differences. I think I saw the PC version, as such I will need to wait for the PS5 version (4 days and counting). There are two ‘issues’ at present. They aren’t really issues, but I need to call them something. The special edition in $99 (normal edition $85), with the hours I spend on the 2006 edition it will be well worth the money and the second one is that the download is 120GB, a little big, but with all the Unreal engine 5 stuff, understandably large. In addition is that this game has been upgraded for the PS5 pro, as such I reckon that this machine will give you additional sides I currently cannot see (I have the normal PS5). And as I see more of the game, I wonder where my memory went, as I do not recall a few issues I see now.

There are several issues (not bad ones) that I get and it also shows that Virtuos didn’t blatantly copy stuff, they added massively making this more than a worry remaster. This is a clear labor of love, a statement I hadn’t expected to give after Hogwarts Legacy. S I watch the play through of MKIceAndFire I see so much familiarity, but so much new as well. I won’t give you the rundown on that as You need to see it for yourself, it is well worth the view and MKIceAndFire did a good job, although it views like he never played the game (which I sincerely doubt).

And as I see at least three locations I haven’t seen in over a decade, my memory might be a little glitchy on the subject. No matter how that plays out, I feel my blood rise to the chance of the occasion and that sets the need to play this game again and get lost in the Cyrodiil. It was there that I initially designed the premise (of my) Elder Scrolls VI Restoration. It was set in part before Skyrim and the latter part was redesigned to play at a setting after Skyrim. I had set the story to not one by two provinces, namely Elsweyr and Valenwood. In the story that I designed I added Cyrodil and Skyrim where the area of Cyrodil was 900% the original size, so as the original game was 5 by 5 miles, the new setting was 15 by 15 miles and Skyrim was grown to fit exactly and that was the new stage, on this I added Elsweyr and Valenwood. The premise to allow added places (as some designers were truly amazing and that was a new setting in RPG gaming. A world like game that was a new setting in gaming. One we had never seen before, and that was the beginning. The game was set on a different stage. You see, I envisioned an impeding war between the magical and muggles (sorry JK). This isn’t a copy of the Skyrim setting. I set the premise that there is a massive distrust between the two all over the game. No one is ‘safe’, and that sets the start, but as I really like the replaying of RPG games, there is the setting that one side is revering the Nine as well as the magical settings (Valenwood) where most of the Elves, High Elves and other magical people are (they are still in other places all over Tamriel as well) and that is setting the larger setting we get to embrace. The other side are the tradies and commerce people that are muggles (sorry JK) and they do not care for the magical people. As you get to encase the game, you need to keep the distrust balanced (no spoiler), and lower the distrust between the two. So you get to set another path and at some point you will need to make a choice and that evolves the game. I made the call to exclude the shimmering isles (for other reasons). But in one way we get to set free the princes of Oblivion, we also need to ‘reconnect’ to the nine and as we get the distrust lower, we can give the tradies their own guilds as well and that is all possible no matter which side we chose. As the princes of Oblivion are set to their thrones again, magic in the land starts to reflourish again, which also lowers the distrust with the council of elves. The setting also sets limitations. As you reset the guilds (except the mages guild which is in the imperial city in Cyrodil) you get to chose. You can have one guild per province. So you need to chose between Skyrim, Valenwood and Elsweyr (Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood). You can only create one in each province. And each choice has an impact. The fighters guild reduces the mount of bandits in that province, the Thieves guild reduces the wealth of merchants in that province and the dark brotherhood reduces the nobleman and high ranking soldiers in that province. As I saw it there are more impacts. Where you place them will also matter, but only in certain ways, the second setting is that if you find certain books, the places will be stronger and have certain improvements. There are 4 books, one for entry, one for sustenance, one for accommodations and one for defense. The books are a mere extra and are not essential, if you find the books later you can upgrade the guild later (but a lot more expensive). And you lower the distrust of the merchants you get to build New Kvatch. Here the books become adamant, there are 4 books of the gates. The wooden book, the book of Dwarves Metal, the book of Moonstone and the book of Ebony. They decide the gate of New Kvatch and also the general look of the city. And as the city is completed you will get your statue in the town square. The statue will be Stone, Bronze, Marble or Ebony, depending on the gate was. And as I see it, there is a real need for a photo mode at this point (which unlocks now).

As I see this remastered game, the ideas that I initially had in 2009 and 2013 erupts in my mind.

I also gad a few winks to the older games. The merchant guild is now lead by Savonarola Frasoric (Savonarola after a Christian false prophet) and Frasoric after the former guild master of Bruma. And in this he is not evil, merely (largely) useless.

The setting as I saw it in less than 48 hours was largely reconnected to as I come to the end of the movie one YouTube. I also saw initially the creation of the mages guild and restoration of the Necromancers, which will lower the view of Meridia has on you, but it will increase the view Namira has on you and as such there are additional missions in the game.

Another setting are the merchants missions, they usually give you resources for New Kvatch and workers, the more workers you have, the bigger and faster the city grows. The first comes from the books for the gates. They will mention quarries for the stones and after you ‘liberate’ these quarries you have unlocked that is where the workers will get the stones. The workers are set to Quarry, transport and masonry. As there are more people, more stones and quicker results in the building. You CANNOT upgrade the city, the book you enact (a specific action in the book) will decide the look of the city and as you decide the city is created. From then onwards you merely get to ‘guide’ by completing merchant missions and get the town build faster, but there is the rub, guiding the merchants non-stop will lower the trust level with the Center of Elves and the Mages guild. The game is about Balance, as most things, balance is everything. And as I set the necromancer side, additional missions were introduced also gives an other setting for the pirate cave under Anvil and that might still be an option, but you need to finish the necromancer missions. In that no undead will initially attack you, unless you attack them (and then, they all turn hostile). As I saw it, more ideas came to mind and as Bethesda became Microsoft, I used the ideas to fuel other RPG games. Well, the ideas came to mind again as I see the remastered version of Oblivion.

Skyrim gave me additional ideas and I reckon that whilst Bethesda is trying to figure out how to connect to High Rock, restoration could add that to the premise, but that is all up to Bethesda. At present I merely use whatever I had to emboss the other RPG games and let that not stop you (or me) from enjoying a remastered Oblivion, because at present that setting is partially overwhelming and I saw almost 2 hours of a game that will be hundreds of hours long. A job well done (as far as I can tell at present)

So get ready to lose a lot of free time and don’t forget to have a great day.

Upgrades

Upgrades, we all know them, at times we desire them or we hope to be around to see them. For the most, no upgrade was every loathed (except Windows Vista). So where can we take gaming? We have one stage, w have more stages and we have the ability to connect stages. Now, lets take Skyrim. The anniversary edition was a welcome edition, beside the glitches there is not much to tell, and focussing on the glitches with a game this big is utter BS. For the most I have had a hell of a time. But the mind keeps slipping, and it is not needed, I want to wait until Hogwarts Legacy is released to see what else is possible. So far I have created two new gaming IP, yet the mind is struggling to find a third. This matters to me, because that IP will focus on a separate station. Something that might not be unique, but this version has never been done before. A Greek RPG, that focusses on the three Olympian gods. You must choose between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. You align with them and as such you will be instilled with the powers that align to that god. So we get basically several worlds. Olympus, Earth, the oceans (earth too) and Tartarus. A world where the gods have missions, they play games and you have to steer your ways into diplomacy, battle and conquest, and subterfuge. You will need to resolve issues, collect evidence, clean messes up and at all times you are rewarded with Ambrosia. Very small items and you need three full cups to become a genuine deity. So could you do that? It is not merely can you do that, can such a game be made? In this it makes sense to look at Skyrim. Now consider that I had the setup for TESVIII: Restoration, that setting had the map of Cyrodill, but now at 9 times the size, connected to that was Skyrim (about 50% larger) and for the main story Valenwood AND Elsweijr. Now consider that the map for Όλυμπος would be well over three Times the size of Όλυμπος and it would encompass the entire Mediterranean, Spain, Italy, Greece and north Africa. That is beside the setting that Tartarus would be massive as well, and mount Olympus would not be too shabby or small either.

Why so big?
This is easy, to create a biodiversity, a larger setting for natural combat and survival, the need for interactions. The larger the map the more natural could feel. So this ends up being not a console game, but a streaming game. This leaves us with the Google Stadia, the Amazon Luna and optionally the Netflix console as well. And the game needs three main quests (three gods, three paths, three main quest lines), that is bedside the side quests that will take up a massive amount of time, there are two versions, the one you have as an aligned player, or an unaligned players. So you will need to consider what you can get away with and what you need to drop. That is the part we forgot about in Skyrim, is it not? We can do everything and there is always time to do everything. So what happens when time and alignment becomes a hindrance? We forget the oldest setting, we need to consider that some things cannot be done and that is before the people intervene.

Not everything can be done, not even as a god, doubt me, then ask Hades. He’ll tell you when you die and he always has the same joke “So where is your wine now?” And that is before you see the impact that happens when the game-map is not static, it is actually dynamic. The Mediterranean map that goes from the beginning of the game 4500 BC – 2000AD, and the map will evolve and you can watch, travel or participate. A game setting that has never before been done. There would be a real consideration that this generation of streaming consoles cannot deal with it at present and that is fine. Yet should we stop developing to the fringes of hardware in the future? I believe not.

And this is not a small project, it has never been done, so it is appealing, the stage where we can traverse this area over 6500 years, and as a god you are immortal, but the stage is still finite (reason classified for now). Consider mapping out the Roman Empire and the impact it had, an impact you can watch yourself. A stage where we need (beside the quest lines) well over 300 quests per alignment, well a lot can be replicated and aligned challenge versus unaligned challenge. And as you become more olympian and as you lose your humanity you might lose options and you might lose links but that is part of life and we forgot to add life to the RPG’s of the last decade. There is no blame, it is no ones fault. It is a mere setting of what the computer can deal with and now that we have the hardware that can deal with it, ignoring that much of a leap seems trivial.

A game that is a challenge and educational in several areas, a game that has never before been made, because until recent there was no hardware to support a stage that big.

So what do you think, would you try such an upgrade?

an Intellectual Property example, Part 1

There have been some messages regarding my claim to IP, fair enough! So let’s take a look at a few parts (it’s not all in one part) on creating IP. First off, this is no longer my IP, I gave it to Bethesda, yet as a creator I still get to work with it, especially as I never received any acknowledgement. That is fine; I do not blame them, as they are always busy. Anyway, I created this after the initial Skyrim release on 11/11/11, it came to me after I had completed the game twice, this was created late 2012 and it took me less than 2 hours to think through and several hours to type it all (around 10,000 words). I will spread it over two blogs and it not all the IP I sent to them will be there, but it will have a fair bit.

Introduction

It was a nice evening; the sun was starting to set on a farm that was on the border with Valenwood, half way between Verkant Hills and Ein Meirvale. The boy looked out over the garden, he saw that the crops needed a little more watering, yet there was no rain in sight. His parents would be away for another two days and he knew that he was supposed to water the garden. He got up from his chair to walk to the well and started to lower the bucket and fill the bucket, as he felt the weight of the water added to the bucket as it sank he started to turn the lever to get the bucket back, it took a minute when the bucket was back at the top. He grasped the bucket to put it on the ledge and suddenly his foot gave way a little, still holding the bucket he lost his balance and down he went, straight into the well, as he hit the water the cold water revived him and then he hit something hard and he lost conscience.

When the boy woke the first thing he realised was that it was not dark, the light that went down the well showed the water, but in the well he saw that the well was a lot larger. There was a walkway around the well, more important, some of the stones in the wall were luminescent, lighting up the room ever so slightly. He looked around and saw 4 doors. He relaxed for a moment and tried to get his bearings. As he walked in the shallow part of the well he looked up and was able to se the top of one tree, he realised that the tree was to the north, so the four doors each was in one direction. He decided to explore and saw that only one of the 4 doors did not have a lock, he entered. The room was relatively small with a table with a lock in the table; on the table was a book, and there was a piece of metal. He opened the book and saw the text. The book was about locks and it explained that he was looking at an iron lock pick. it told him that the lock pick could be used to open simple locks, as the lock was made from the same metal the pick would only damage to the smallest degree if he did something wrong and not be hurt if he did things right. He looked around and saw hat thee were much more light giving stones in this room, he could see decent details. The room was filled with symbols that he did not recognise, and there was the lock. The book showed several locks and made reference to steel, Dwemer metal, orsinium steel, Elven silver steel and Oblivion picks, more important on how some picks can only be used on some locks with the exception of magical locks that required arcane glass picks. He tried to apply the knowledge and on the second attempt and the lock it opened and he heard a sound, he looked on the floor and there was a steel pick on the floor. He looked around and saw nothing else. He left to return back to the well. He looked up and there was a lot less light coming down now. He looked at the room and noticed that as he stayed close to the wall that the room was more visible. He looked around and inspected the 3 doors, all showing the same lock. He opened the second door on the first attempt, it opened, yet he saw that the iron pick showed marks, he pocketed the iron pick and kept the steel pick ready. In the next room was merely a chest, a locked one and the steel pick had no issue opening it. in the chest was an outfit, the outfit was meant for a woman, so he left it, what was interesting were the bright green colours and the weave was really pretty, he had never seen a dress this pretty, not on his mum or one anyone, so rethought his action and pocketed the dress for his mum. There was also a chain, a necklace. He pocketed that one as well. The next room was the same, but now the outfit was for a man, It looked really nice and it also looked brand new, which was odd as they lived on the farm with their grandparents, they never had anything like this before. There was also a small knife which was not iron or steel, it was more orange and really sharp, he attached the knife to his belt and left the room. The last door was the same but the room was different. It was more like a long corridor. He walked through the room whilst observing it, at the end was a trapdoor. The trapdoor had a text “you will fall twice your height and you cannot return, it is the only exit“, he considered a few seconds and decided to take that fall, waiting two days in a place without food was not a nice idea. He landed on stones and the fall was not hard as he knew what had been coming. In this room there were all kind of weapons, there were swords, maces, axes and bows. There were quivers with arrows and on the table was a small box and there was a note, the box only had a ring and when he touched the ring he felt weird, he felt more, and more important he sensed a level of confidence. He read the note.

Honoured reader,

This is the ring of Mana, the ring still has magical properties even as magic has seemingly waned for the longest time. I remember my life in the Imperial city where magic was common, yet over time as I grew older the magi all lost their powers, magic fell away. I was a mere merchant, yet I was never treated wrongly by those with magic. I once held in pawn this ring who was owned by an altmer named Faelian. There was a rumour that he died, but the ticket is still out, and the ticket if paid the total of 150 coins must be honoured. He was once a nice man falling on hard times. I remain a man of honour. The ring instils a person with magic, now that there is no magic left and the fact that this ring still works makes it very powerful and very expensive. Do what you please; if you are here in this room, it is yours.

I took the ring and the moment I put it on I suddenly noticed a book, it was weird as I did not remember the book to be there. I read the book and as I read it I felt my hand growing warm, I did as the book instructed and from my hand came a long flame, it merely hit the wall but I was amazed, I was able to send flames flying. I looked around and as I noticed the door, I also noticed that there was a plank locking the door in place. I removed the plank and entered the next door, it was no longer a room, it seemed to be a grotto and there was very little light, there were torches by the door. I grabbed a few and moved on. I remembered how to sneak, but I did not know whether I was doing it correctly. I moved on slowly. There was the odd rat down here, they were a lot larger, but the sword was really good at dispersing them. I could see decent with a torch, but it gave away my position. I walked on slowly trying to use my ears as much as possible. It took an hour, the grotto was winding yet always in one direction. I came to the end with no option, yet in the corner of the end wall was a hole. I looked down and saw nothing; I dropped a torch and saw that it was almost the same distance as the initial drop. I listened and dropped down the hole. This was larger, but still going in a direction. It was close to 5 minutes down the new grotto when I heard talking. There was light up front and I dropped my torch losing the flames. It was hard to see anything, but I moved forward. As the voices grew louder I started to make things out. There was a tent with two men, one was wearing a uniform. They were talking about proceeds. There were coins on the table and a dead woman on the floor. They were stripping her of all her goods. The men were laughing and separating valuables. a few coins and a jewel went on the table, the rest was discarded. Then the men separated, they were bad man, one walked to the entrance of the grotto, the other one went into the tent, he was lying down, going to sleep. I sneaked slowly making sure not to make any sound. I also went to the entrance slowly, I had switched to the bow, it felt comfortable and I kept an arrow ready. I moved slowly and then I head the man at the entrance say “You were right there was someone else. Kill him!” I suddenly heard commotion in the tent as the man got up fast. I released the arrow and the man looked really surprised as the arrow went into his skull, I turned around to deal with the other man and he had already thrown an axe. I missed me but made short work of my bow. As he was closing in fast I acted in instinct, raised my hand and let flames rip, he screamed in agony as he was set ablaze. When he was dead I looted what I could and as I inspected the tent, I saw and opened the book the Firmament.

This is where we enter the final parts of the character.

Where we are

Welcome to Elder Scrolls Restoration, in this game you get the option to make change to Tamriel. The world has changed, several generations after magic left us, even more after the age of the returned dragons we are in a world where almost all are equal. The magi are not above us, the imperial city is no longer ruled by the mages guild. There is apparently still magic in Valenwood, but non magic people do not venture there, the rumours are just too awful. We were all given equality by Stendarr, Stendarr be praised, we can all become merchants, artisans and artists. The guards of Stendarr keep the street clean, the brethren of Stendarr kept the people healthy, the give medicine and they feed the poor who cannot care for themselves. It is a lovely world and we can do whatever we want to do.

It is here where you take your first steps and the first option where you can decide what to do next. You just have to go home and get some sleep and tell your parents in the morning.

Unless there is breaking news that is really important, part two tomorrow, where you learn more about how things started.

Tag Archives: Valenwood

Curse you to Oblivion

Upgrades

an Intellectual Property example, Part 1

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