Nehrim

[JarlFrank]

Just went through the dungeon "Alcazar's last bastion" which was really quite awesome. Had a secret chamber containing a female mage called Alcazar in it, who has a rather powerful bow (which is now mine, heheh). To open the passage to that chamber you had to activate two switches (one of them hidden), then another switch in front of the chamber (which can only be activated after the first two). After killing her, I saw some artifacts on a ledge above me. I saw another switch, activated it, it triggered a trap that sent part of the floor stamping upwards all the time, then I stepped on that part of the floor and used it to reach that ledge with the artefacts.

So yeah, this game has some really awesome dungeon design at some places.

 

[Raapys]

Yeah, the great dungeons just keep on coming. What's even more impressive to me though, is the world design. Areas such as those around Treomar, Nordwall and Cahbaet are simply amazing-looking.

The magic system is annoying me a bit though. I haven't found any of the 'special' spells, and the regular ones are too weak considering they only upgrade every 7 levels. As such, I found that pretty much the easiest route, whether warrior or mage, is to just train the Sword skill up as high as possible then use magic as long-range and support.

Also think I've completely lost the main quest. I did everything at the Arkane Sanktum, but looks like the quest line ended there. Don't think any of the other quests I have are related to the main quest.

 

[Mangoose]

Very intriguing - sounds like a helluva mod. In fact it almost seems disingenuous to call it merely that

That's because it's a Total Conversion.

FFS

 

[roll-a-die]

Not technically, a total conversion uses nothing from the mainline game, but this one uses most of the assets. The is more of a player campaign.

 

[Mangoose]

Not technically, a total conversion uses nothing from the mainline game, but this one uses most of the assets. The is more of a player campaign.

This is the web page of one of the world's most extensive total conversions for TES IV: Oblivion.

MORAN

 

[JarlFrank]

Not technically, a total conversion uses nothing from the mainline game, but this one uses most of the assets. The is more of a player campaign.

Yeah, but I think the definition of Total Conversion is a mod that adds a rather large new gameworld, new quests, new locations, new everything... basically, it's a completely different game. It can still use the same assets, that's not a problem.

 

[Sceptic]

Lazarus used many assets from DS. Trying to call Lazarus a NOT total conversion of DS would be pretty stupid.

 

[roll-a-die]

Total conversion

A total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

In some cases, the goal of a group that sets out to create a total conversion is to sell their end product, which necessitates the need to replace the original content to avoid copyright infringement.

Since most total conversions only share the engine in common with the original game, if the engine becomes Free Software, the total conversion can be playable without having to own the original game. A few examples of these include the Tremulous mod for Quake III Arena, mods for Command & Conquer Renegade - Red Alert: Apocalypse Rising, Red Alert: A Path Beyond, C&C Reborn, Battle For Dune; the D-Day: Normandy mod for Quake II, and Counter-Strike for Half-Life. Counter-Strike is notable as it has far exceeded the popularity of the original game. Team Fortress, one of the most popular mods ever, was originally a Quake total conversion. It has been so popular that a sequel, Team Fortress 2, has been developed. Doom has also had its share of modifications, such as engine modifications like ZDoom and SkullTag.

Similarly, Trauma Studios, which developed the popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, was bought by Digital Illusions CE to work on Battlefield 2. Both Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 are in modern settings.

 

[Morkar Left]

wikipedia vs common sense

Which is better and why?

Discuss!

 

[roll-a-die]

That's the thing, the word, TOTAL, implies completeness, or TOTALITY. CONVERSION, implies CHANGE, or TRANSFORMATION, most often within the bounds of an external influence. IE I converted my truck to run on biodesel.

Thus together they would mean, COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION. IE everything is changed. IE something like Dystopia or Neotokyo for HL2 would be a Total Conversion, because they use no asset included in the main game, and often change base code to do what they want. While this is merely a partial conversion, because they haven't seen fit to replace the graphical assets.

 

[Mangoose]

Yeah, because it looks exactly like Oblivion.

Youa re dum

 

[Overweight Manatee]

A total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

That depends on what you consider 'artistic assets'. Is the artistic part of the game the base textures and models? Or is it the gameworld design, the locations, the characters, the quests? I think you can find 1,000,000 textures ahd models of standard trees, grass and buildings just like Oblivions, so I would conclude the artistic replacement is the game itself.

From what I know, anything that completely replaces the main game world is usually considered a total conversion. There is no reason to recreate the exact same assets you were already using, thats stupid.

 

[roll-a-die]

A total conversion is a mod of an existing game that (usually) replaces almost all of the artistic assets in the original game, and sometimes core aspects of gameplay, in some cases creating a game in a completely different genre from the original.

That depends on what you consider 'artistic assets'. Is the artistic part of the game the base textures and models? Or is it the gameworld design, the locations, the characters, the quests? I think you can find 1,000,000 textures ahd models of standard trees, grass and buildings just like Oblivions, so I would conclude the artistic replacement is the game itself.

From what I know, anything that completely replaces the main game world is usually considered a total conversion. There is no reason to recreate the exact same assets you were already using, thats stupid.

By that nature ANY MOD for NWN would be a total conversion.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Its not a hard and fast rule. Total Conversion really more refers to the amount of work gone into changing the game. For example, when people refer to total conversions for BG2, they mean ones that simply change the gameworld. It still uses mostly the same stuff. Whereas with NWN creating modules is easy and in fact intended, so a TC neccesarily means that you more drastically alter things. In essence, consider a TC to be a label you can apply selective to any really big mod.

 

[Turisas]

Fuck's sake guys, talk more about the game already.

Reading these till I have the time to try it out for myself.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Hmm, perhaps this might be worth a try one day.

How are the specs required? The same as those on the Oblivion website? Or have they been upped to deal with the new additions?

 

[tetsuo]

It definitely needs higher specs then oblivion i can run a moddet oblivon on ultra at about 50 fps nehrim runs at 25fps or less (outdoors of course) at the same settings
But that was to be expected the world is fully handcrafted no copy pasted forests, no different cells for citys way more detailed textures and models and they even implemented new effects like depth of field.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, if you want to play at good graphic settings, you need a better rig than Oblivion, at least in the outdoor areas. I often get a bit of stuttering there. The dungeons are fluent and comparable to vanilla, though.

You might try completely switching off grass to get better outdoors performance, or at least lower the grass view distance considerably. I wouldn't change anything about the general view distance, though, because it actually adds a lot to the atmosphere since the landscape is excellently designed and seeing really fucking high mountains on the horizon = awesome.

If you liked Daggerfall and Morrowind and were disappointed by Oblivion, you'll love this mod. Fighting a strong undead duchess with a fucking powerful sword, managing to beat her with only few HP left, then looting that sword off her is incredibly rewarding. Story seems to be pretty good, too, although I'd really like the game to have more sidequests.

Oh, by the way: I've read that a small amount of dungeons are still locked and can't be opened because they're not fully completed yet and will be unlocked with further patches.

 

[Rude Dude]

The developers should link quests with (a few) dungeons and give the npc's meaning.

I hate the npcs so i decided to kill them by opportunity.

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My conclusion so far (on the way back to the monastry from treomar): Dungeons are simply better than these in blivion, dialogue is shit(nearly everyone has the same line and merchants usually say nothing at all). Combat is different...it is more deadlier, less tedious, i can kill monsters with 3-4 critical hits and the other way around they can kill me with 2-3 hits. World was already mentioned before , story mediocre at best , all in all i would say its more like Gothic combat wise and more like uhm Diablo item wise(set-items, every dungeon has its special treasure)

i like it, ... as a crawl

 

[vazquez595654]

I'm near the beginning. What do you need besides the two shovels in order to straighten the gate? The new mine you go to circles back to the first mine you started in. Do I really need to go back in there?

I'm playing the game, not knowing a word of German. So any help is appreciated.

 

[Raapys]

You just need the two shovels which are pointed to by the quest compass, then you can go back out.

 

[Jaesun]

Quest Compass?

 

[Raapys]

Quest Compass?

Well, to be fair it only actually does something in like...one tenth of the quests, maybe less. To my despair, since I sometimes have problems following the german dialog when they tell you where to go next.

 

[vazquez595654]

Okay, then my game is broken, because I have the two shovels and he tells me this:

Ich sage Euch, bleibt bloB dem Tor fern.

Google Translation:

I tell you, is far Biobé the gate.

I notice that when I shoot arrows at the cloaked people on the other side they don't attack either.

 

[Raapys]

Ah, you've probably messed up earlier. Have you patched the game? How did you get the soap? When getting the soap you're supposed to fire an arrow or spell(scroll) at the mages outside the gate, who will then do a little attack which causes soap to fall down. Then you do the shovel-quest.