Overworld Overhaul

[Kepling]

These are just some thoughts I've had playing around with both the DOS and Unity versions, all while pondering the question "What could be done with 60k square miles of empty real estate?"

Realistic fast travel: (Would likely require roads and docks, also mostly a pipe dream)
-Remove old system
-when fast traveling you auto-move at high speed so you coast across the scenery with game time advancing proportionally, like playing back a movie in fast forward instead of being instantaneous. Would make long trips feel long since you have to wait vs small trips. Got this idea after bumping the run speed up to 10k to get a feel for the landscape, and also the SETA option in X3: Reunion. Probably would need to be slower than 10k so it doesn't crash and it feels like travel. (BTW, I went across the whole map at that speed in unity without any problem)
Edit:Going back and playing with runspeed I think I was using 1k not 10k, in both 0.0.6 and 0.1.1 10k made me fall through the ground, but in 0.0.6 1k was fine. In 0.1.1 1k still made me fall through. A runspeed of 250 might be more reasonable for fast travel.
-no hybrid traveling; start to coast, coast to coast, coast to finish; 3 separate fast travels to go from one inland city across the bay to another inland city
-land based fast travel costs fatigue so you need to stop and rest to continue on, would need to plan your trip around taverns or else be forced to stop and camp when fatigue runs out risking encounters, rain and snow increase fatigue costs, able to stop fast travel if you notice your fatigue is getting low, rain and snow could reduce recovery rates when resting outside
-courier system to coordinate with your ship, send messenger out to ship to move to where you need it, both take time to happen and there is a small chance that the messenger will die en route. Couriers could be a hire-able npc at taverns and serve other purposes
-outside only fly spell that also increases movement speed for fast traversing of the landscape, maybe an item like boots, a broom, or a cloak that looks like wings

Static overworld considerations:
-Landmarks; rivers and roads alone would do miracles, also maybe generic reusable things like bridges, rock formations or giant trees that stick out above the other trees
-High spots(Lone hills, watch towers, ranger stations) because the scenery looks awesome from up high. If placed they shouldn't be on the map so there are things to find exploring the world, also they would be easy to find since they would stick up.
-Road signs
-lighthouses for coastal cities, make cities more noticeable and could also be lumped with the addition of docks
-unique wilderness content should probably be avoided since there is no guarantee that anyone would ever find it in such a huge world

Most of the landscape should stay as is so the things you find are that much more special. One of the things that bother me most about the last 3 TES games is the fact that they cram so much content into the maps you're basically tripping over dungeons. Daggerfall is the complete opposite with nearly no content, even lacking any kind of landmarks short of towns and dungeon entrances. Granted the DOS version has no map depth or view distance so it's understandable that the overworld went mostly unused, but with the unity version remedying those obstacles there is no reason not to add life to it.

Random overworld spawns:
-wandering npcs, some may spawn random events, "Help! The Dark Brotherhood is after me!" Could get a list of choices(A. Sure, I'll help you, B. Not getting involved, C. Sorry about your luck, I work for the DB! DIE!), all with appropriate reputation changes, also neg DB rep for impersonating a DB member
-more monster spawns, including bandit camps, harpy or rat nests, etc. Camps and nests could be destructible and give treasure after monsters are dead
-patches of alchemy ingredients, plants to harvest, ore seams for mining, trees to chop (special consideration should be made to be Lore friendly)
-herbalist, miner, logger, and hunter npcs that will sell ingredients in the wilderness, maybe tricky considering how merchants work
-treasure in the middle of the forest, a tree could have a glimmer animation showing that it can be opened
-when it stops raining a rainbow could spawn with treasure at each end, treasure would disappear with the rainbow. Make it nearly impossible to make it in time so no one believes that it really happens.
-though you could find stuff wandering through the wilderness, chances are that you'll find nothing


Other stupid stuff:
-Visual Reputation for various factions in character screen
-more detailed province maps that show any major landmarks added into the game, mostly the roads and rivers, also not too detailed, should still be an approximation of where on the map you are
-A warning that the original had nudity and an option to turn the nudity off, I'm not personally offended by it, but others might be. Mostly just a suggestion that we cover our own asses.
-add flying and no clipping to the console
-A magic system overhaul, overworld detect spells would be amazing(Find Town, Find Dungeon, Find Plants)

[Biboran]

Maybe start do DF overhaul with hand elaboration of landscapes?
First biggest cities and mine-quesst locations do tes-3-5 like, then... other territories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-ulf4kVm0 like this

Spoiler!

But if do sonething like this easer do full remake of the game like skywind

[Kepling]

Maybe start do DF overhaul with hand elaboration of landscapes?
First biggest cities and mine-quesst locations do tes-3-5 like, then... other territories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9-ulf4kVm0 like this

Spoiler!

But if do sonething like this easer do full remake of the game like skywind

An overhaul of the cities might be reasonable to do, from what I can tell the cities are made up of generic blocks.
http://www.uesp.net/w/images/d/dc/DF-BL ... 01.RMB.png
If someone went through and updated all the associated info for each block it would be applied to every city that used that block. IMO the cities are fine as is since they have content in them all ready and don't look all that bad, though if someone went through and made this mod I wouldn't complain. The main focus for the overworld should probably be on the thousands of miles of empty terrain that honestly serves little purpose in the original game, but at the same time avoiding hand elaboration since no one in their right mind would explore every square inch of such a massive area. Anything unique added outside of the marked locations on the map would likely be never found by anyone.

One mod that I may be able to do is the random alchemy ingredient spawns, but I wouldn't be able to start on it until overworld monster spawns and items are implemented. My idea is to have new monsters that only spawn in the overworld in the proper climate. These monsters have no movement or attack, and would only have 1 hit point. All you would need to do it walk up to it and wack it with your weapon, then loot the body.

Another consideration for an overworld overhaul that I've thought of is climate blending. In the original DF when you crossed into another climate everything magically changed into the new climate, while in DFU you get what's in the included pictures.

[Biboran]

If we talk in such a way, the first thing to do - overhaul ALL landscape. Mod for landscape for DTFU is way better then vanilla... nothing, but it is far from something looks like norml real lanscape. Something like this

Spoiler!

but more detailed. But you need a lot of assets and hand work on this stage - radom generator don't do rivers, swamps, cliffs, rivers, meadows etc. when you want it. If base landscape will look like sonething real, other will be much easer. I personaly had a lot ideas of landscape and bioms, I can tell if you want Here my map of iliac bay base of TESIII-period of lore Tamriel http://i.imgur.com/8jxpChV.png
Second, that is very related to the first point, the uniqueness of the counties. They should be more or less original. For example, Glenumbra Moors is a big swamp and river region, with dark cities looks like this http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Gua ... d--012.jpg. Shalgora is look like Alpine Meadows with a lot of farms, water mills etc. Or orcish Orsinium and Direnni's Isles of Balfiera. Each graph must be truly individual. Each country has its relations with its neighbors, generating alliances or conflicts. For another Example: Ilessian Hills (mountain kingdom, especially where there is no place to grow food) receiving grain with big discount from Shalgora, because large rivers, on which are Shalgora's water mills, derived from mountians of Ilessian. But now after war of Betony, all grain buys Anticlere and Shalgora don't trade with Ilessian Hills anymore. This may give rise to conflict.
Third, it's dungeons and locations. In game this is randomly generated... something. And not-generated looks like its generated. I think this need to be hand-remaded like landscape and cities. Dungeons and locations need to divided on types: Witch coven, Nordic barrow, Dwemer ruin, Breton crypt, Beast lair, Spriggan meadow, Giant camp, Direnni ruin etc.
Fourth, Role-system. The RPG-part of Dagerfall had a lot of things that work bad. Like languages - I think its way better if it be like perks - character or know language, or not.
Fifth, NCP system - random things in dungeons, random npc in cities, guards from nowere, "decoration" npc - all of this Arena-like things need to be remaded.
Sixth, quests, factions, faction quests, etc. - need all be hand remaded. It can be random quests, it is unpossible to do all quets in Dagerfall, but factions need "base plot" or something like this.

All of this need a lot of assets (nobody need Crysys graphics, graphics like this http://static3.gamespot.com/uploads/ori ... f2_003.jpg be enough, but this is work too), and other work, but this is not impossible and in my opinion make dagerfall looks like non-generated and realy coo hand-maded game, on which people can do mods and expand. And sorry for my english

[LypyL]

One mod that I may be able to do is the random alchemy ingredient spawns, but I wouldn't be able to start on it until overworld monster spawns and items are implemented. My idea is to have new monsters that only spawn in the overworld in the proper climate. These monsters have no movement or attack, and would only have 1 hit point. All you would need to do it walk up to it and wack it with your weapon, then loot the body.

Another consideration for an overworld overhaul that I've thought of is climate blending. In the original DF when you crossed into another climate everything magically changed into the new climate, while in DFU you get what's in the included pictures.

I think those are both excellent ideas for mods.

[alephnaught]

If we talk in such a way, the first thing to do - overhaul ALL landscape.

The kind of overhaul you're talking about is probably not really within the scope of feasibility of this project - you're talking about more of a Morroblivion/Skywind type effort which would involve rebuilding the graphics engine to the point that it wouldn't resemble Daggerfall as we know it anymore.

Some of the stuff that kepling is talking about would probably be feasible though. You'd just need to find a way to incorporate new features procedurally rather than by hand, which I can imagine being relatively straightforward with things like roads - just a matter of connecting the dots! Other features like lighthouses can be added based on conditionals - "IF city=true AND distancetosea<x THEN spawn_lighthouse" or whatever. That way you get a world that still looks and feels like Daggerfall's but.. better.