Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

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Interkarma
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Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Interkarma »

Ted Peterson, one of the original creators of The Elder Scrolls and author of many in-game books for Daggerfall and Morrowind, has raised the idea of writing some new Daggerfall books to be found in Daggerfall Unity.

This is a unique opportunity to let Ted know what kinds of books you'd like to read! Some of the broad ideas Ted has thrown around so far are prequels to later events and unique books that can only be found after the main quest is complete. If you're on Twitter, you'll also find some discussion here.

If you're really into TES lore and can think of plot/consistency issues in Daggerfall's main story, please let Ted know. And if you know of other good discussions about this subject, please link it for him.

Thank you all!

Tedders
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Tedders »

Hello! As Gavin says, I’d like to contribute a little something to the project. What strikes me as most useful is a book (or a couple of books) that would help fill in some gaps in the main story quest. It can’t be anything that changed the game itself (like deleting Princess Morgiah because she’s off to her wedding in Firsthold) because I don’t want to give something which would require more work from the creators of DFU. But Gavin tells me he can easily make the book only accessible after you’ve completed the main quest, so something that explains the parts of the mystery of Lysandus and Numidium which wasn’t explained clearly or at all would be good.

Hasten to add that since DFU is not an official Bethesda Project, what I write should not be considered official canon. And if you have a brilliant idea, I may use it completely (in which case I’ll figure out some in-story way to give you credit), may not (even though it’s brilliant), or may leap frog off of it in a different direction.

My goal is to contribute and hopefully fill in some gaps, but try to do it too predictably. Hopefully with some humor.

Tedders
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Tedders »

Try NOT to do it too predictably, not try to do it predictably. Good job, Peterson. Way to make the people believe in your writing prowess.

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Interkarma
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Interkarma »

Welcome to our little community Ted! I'm very excited to see what comes out of all this. And thank you so much for your kind offer of writing a book or two for Daggerfall Unity. :)

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Deepfighter
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Deepfighter »

Welcome Ted! Just an honor like always! :)

I proposed the idea on Twitter with the Gothryd-Lysandus mystery and just wanted to let you know, that you get a private message sooner than later with all the sources and information needed.

I will tell you the other ideas I have secretly via PM as I don't want to spoil anything. During the German translation process we found a lot of tiny lore bits which could easily be overlooked by normally playing the game. But for your idea they are - I would say - perfect. :D
Head of the German Daggerfall translation - www.daggerfalldeutsch.de
and German translator for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Lore-Expert for The Elder Scrolls: Online

Tedders
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Tedders »

I haven’t received your PM yet. Are you using @CharlesPeterson?

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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Jay_H »

Yeah, a summary of what the heck just happened would be my proposal. Sort of like In the Darkness of Shadow Moses (full), it could be written by an anonymous, but important, official in the Daggerfall kingdom who refuses to let the truth remain hidden. So much of the game's plot is threadbare and barely explained as is, and you have to make a huge effort just to put together who the villain is and why. (I just did that this year, and I've been playing since the demo CDs.)

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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by jayhova »

Tedders wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 12:03 am Hello! As Gavin says, I’d like to contribute a little something to the project. What strikes me as most useful is a book (or a couple of books) that would help fill in some gaps in the main story quest. It can’t be anything that changed the game itself (like deleting Princess Morgiah because she’s off to her wedding in Firsthold) because I don’t want to give something which would require more work from the creators of DFU. But Gavin tells me he can easily make the book only accessible after you’ve completed the main quest, so something that explains the parts of the mystery of Lysandus and Numidium which wasn’t explained clearly or at all would be good.

Hasten to add that since DFU is not an official Bethesda Project, what I write should not be considered official canon. And if you have a brilliant idea, I may use it completely (in which case I’ll figure out some in-story way to give you credit), may not (even though it’s brilliant), or may leap frog off of it in a different direction.

My goal is to contribute and hopefully fill in some gaps, but try to do it too predictably. Hopefully with some humor.
To me the vision of what Daggerfall should be is primarily yours and Julian's. It is terribly unfortunate that the need to get the product out the door required that you had to sacrifice bits of your vision of how it should have been. I and most likely nearly all of us who love this project want your input. Quite frankly, to me, your's (and Julian's) is the most canon input that could be hoped for. Perhaps changes to the game as it sits would be more work but it is likely that whoever does that work for them it would be a labor of love. Gavin and others have labored to bring this into the modern world. Perhaps some feel it's time to pass the torch, but I don't think many would feel it would not be a worthwhile endeavor to produce the sort of Daggerfall you would have produced had you had another year to do so.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

Zarrgon66
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by Zarrgon66 »

I'd like to see books that you could only see in Daggerfall's time period, stuff like dime novels, chapbooks and story papers, the type of cheap disposable fiction the common people of Tamriel read on the regular that wouldn't survive very long due to the cheap printing methods used in making them.

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emmathepony
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Re: Ted Peterson: Book Concepts and Plot Holes, How You Can Help

Post by emmathepony »

I wouldn't mind a book with Orcish scribbling all over it (as a foreshadow to the future Elder Scrolls games), or perhaps books written directly by creatures like the nymphs or Deadra... perhaps you need to talk to an NPC to get them translated!

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