by Sideromelane » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:41 pm
Okay, so it's in early stages. But I have a few questions about this mod.
First, do you have a dialogue tree? Or are you making up the conversations off the cuff?
Reason I ask is that the dialogue is very flat right now. Almost no punctuation, very static and un-Skyrim-like options ('Hi' as opposed to 'Greetings/Hello there traveler/Welcome Stranger) - this breaks immersion to a HUGE degree, far more than you would expect. If you have a dialogue tree with written and planned conversations mapped out, please send them to me! I don't mind proofing and editing the dialogue for this sort of thing, then all you have to do is copy-paste the lines into place in the CK (A brief character bio for each of the actors would also be helpful in this of course).
If you are just making up content as you go, stop, and rethink. You are making things a LOT more difficult for yourself for later. And that still applies even if you HAVE planned your dialogue. Adding in placeholder dialogue means you will later have to go back and re-edit and add new lines, then chase down the strings of options and expand all those... Write it all out in advance and I promise it will be 1000% easier later. And bounce the dialogue off me (and a few other people too, if more want to proof your work).
Second, and again recognizing the early stage here, you need to look closely at your faction assignments. NPC's who have no reason to attack, should NOT attack the player on sight. Or each other for that matter, outside of the arena zone. Unlocking a few doors should not result in the entire inventory of the arena following you around Benny-Hill style attacking each other, you, the walls and themselves. Mia suffered a similar problem in earlier releases of Devourment, and I think it was to do with faction assignments.
Third, lighting and environments. Dwemer is hard to pull off. The Dwemer were tricky, weird, could divide by zero and possibly knew Jack O'Neil and the rest of SG1. Most of the spaces in your dungeon could use smaller doors, shadows, etc. Okay yes, it's an early release, but again it's the sort of thing if you get it right the first time, you don't need to endlessly return and redo sections. All the doors I found were HUGE, and regularly spaced and the dungeon in general looked more like the bethesda testing hallways than actual play zones. It's something a lot of new level designers seem to do, they make squares and rectangles because those are easier, but look at some of the Beth maps in the CK - Lots of dead ends, slopes, acute and obtuse angles - Harder to work from but much more immersive.
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I like what you've done, it's an amazing effort, and I would like to see more of it. While the vore arena idea doesn't appeal much, I welcome some new content expanding Devourment. Please, continue. And if you would like some suggestions:
The Dwemer were into building huge effigies underground and trying to make them come alive - See TES: Morrowind - What might be entertaining is to design your dungeon as a huge body. And ohgawd now I have to open your ESP in CK and see if that's exactly what you've done... No, okay then.
Also, it IS possible to re-texture environmental surfaces. Oblivion had a mod that introduced tentacle rape flesh caves. I'm sure Skyrim can have a similar thing done. I'm thinking along the lines of arena-looks-like-a-stomach, pitfall traps lead to intestines full of monsters to fight through back to the arena etc.
Hell, a huge underground woman people fight and eat each other inside of could even be made to ALMOST fit with lore. Morrowind was all about the consequences of the Dwemer trying to build themselves a God using the heart of a dead god and a lot of steam pipes. Make yours about the Dwemer trying to bring a God to life by women consuming each other inside the belly of the constructed god-o-maton, heck, if you have the skill, put in a soul-alter to 'feed' consumed souls to in exchange for magical artifacts (seriously, please do so, I have thousands of the damn things and could use some new enchantments to play with).
Sex Dungeon - Sexlab has a ton of stuff it barely uses. Optional side-room for fun with team-mates or something.
