Roads of Daggerfall

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King of Worms
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by King of Worms »

Also what appears like a problem from high above the map will most likely be a non issue while running on the terrain in the game.

Very glad to finally see something practical here

Lokkrin Zhataros
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Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

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BadLuckBurt
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by BadLuckBurt »

Lokkrin Zhataros wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:07 pm - snip
I really don't see the point of this wall of text. You make it pretty clear you won't be using this mod so why be so long-winded about it?

I'll humor you and answer some of your questions though.

I fail to see the point of vanilla fast-travel, that'll work regardless of roads being in the game or not. Tedious Travel could theoretically check in with the road mod to get a road path, if the author is up for supporting it I'm sure something could be worked out.

Roads lead places wether they're in Arena, Daggerfall or whatever TES game you prefer. I don't know what would be useless about roads in Daggerfall, use them if you want to, don't use them if you don't. We're just trying to see if it's workable or not.

The mod is useless for anyone who doesn't want to use it, that holds true for any mod in existence no matter how good it may be.

And roads leading nowhere is silly when we might as well make a network out of them. Meritamas posted the very first few attempts and they look promising to say the least. I don't care how the original developers would've handled roads, there were plans for it at some point in development but since we have no way of knowing we might as well try our own thing.

This mod isn't for players like you, you probably should've realised that half-way through writing your post so I wouldn't worry about your immersion too much. Whatever ends up happening with Tedious Travel and the potential roads mod we'll see when it comes to that but no-one forces you to use this mod if it's realised.

Lastly, modding has to be fun and this just so happens to be fun to explore. If you want to see something else made you're welcome to join in the fun ;)
DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
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Lokkrin Zhataros
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Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

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ByteMixer
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by ByteMixer »

If the mod is intended for "realism or immersion junkies" then let it be. I don't see a problem or concern in that.

I don't find your post offensive. But I don't understand why you would be concerned if the mod is useful to you personally or not. The mod's intended purpose and usefulness is up to the mod author and by proxy, the people who desire this type of mod. Being concerned doesn't make sense to me. If it's not compatible with your personal experience, then just don't use it?

Not all roads need to be paved. Some could be animal paths or hunting trails, some could be dirt or gravel. I would think only important main roads between commerce centers would be well paved. Plus, you could use the type of road as a cue or landmark to tell the player that, "Hey, this broken, torn up path may lead somewhere like a dungeon or crypt. Might want to go explore that for fun, loot, and possibly death."

But yeah, it's possible this mod would not be "immersion" compatible with Tedious Travel. At least, not initially. Maybe the mod author for Tedious Travel would find a way to make the player "stick to the roads" by calculating a predetermined path to follow rather than plow over hills and forests "as the crow flies." But that's something for way in the future. We don't even have a working version of roads yet, and it's still heavily concept work at this point.

As for practicality. Roads become practical as just another option for the player to travel around. Maybe it's aimed for the person who wants to wander to another location aimlessly, or to explore and still have a guide point to return to without getting really lost in the wilderness. Some people just hate the idea of using fast travel (and I'm not a fan of Tedious Travel either, but that's on me personally).

For me, I'm just interested and waiting to see how the concept gets implemented as well as looking to the future of what can be done to create synergy between it and other mods that add unique, custom locations now that modders can implement those areas using world data. (e.g. World of Daggerfall and New Locations mods by Kamer and Uncanny Valley). The initial implementation of roads may not be "practical" and more for "immersion junkies" but later on, I see the potential for the initial roads idea to be built upon to add synergy and usefulness for other mods that add unique and custom locations.
"Whatever you do, make good art." - Neil Gaiman

Lokkrin Zhataros
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Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

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ByteMixer
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by ByteMixer »

Well, I like to look at possibilities, and speculate. The first public iteration of Meritamas's work will probably be fairly rough, but usable. After that point, it's just seeing what can be refined, tweaked, made more interesting, and what can be done to promote synergy with other mods that might be able to add locations. I don't think it's something that will happen soon, but I like to think it's something that could eventually happen and be an ongoing effort. And hey, I've been surprised by modders here before!
"Whatever you do, make good art." - Neil Gaiman

Lokkrin Zhataros
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Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

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meritamas
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by meritamas »

chtujo wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:19 pm Something extra I'd like to add to this - IMHO Daggerfall is in need of an updated heightmap. The old one only stores a few different height levels, and is rather low resolution. If possible, it would be good if this mod was designed so that it can easily be re-run on a new heightmap if it were to be released, with minimal manual adjustment.
ByteMixer wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:42 am For me, I'm just interested and waiting to see how the concept gets implemented as well as looking to the future of what can be done to create synergy between it and other mods that add unique, custom locations now that modders can implement those areas using world data. (e.g. World of Daggerfall and New Locations mods by Kamer and Uncanny Valley).
Daggerfall uses the low-res heightmaps but only as a basis. It uses an algorithm to generate the actual terrain features based on these maps.
I am aiming to get an adaptable solution that can easily be run on other maps or extended or completely new sets of locations as well.
ByteMixer wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:42 am If the mod is intended for "realism or immersion junkies" then let it be.
Don't recall ever being called a 'realism or immersion junkie', but fair enough. Fits well :D
ByteMixer wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:42 am Not all roads need to be paved. Some could be animal paths or hunting trails, some could be dirt or gravel. I would think only important main roads between commerce centers would be well paved. Plus, you could use the type of road as a cue or landmark to tell the player that, "Hey, this broken, torn up path may lead somewhere like a dungeon or crypt. Might want to go explore that for fun, loot, and possibly death."
Lokkrin Zhataros wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:07 pm I am now happy and enthusiastic about the hopeful prospect of having roads properly placed in Daggerfall in the future.

I hope all the best for the modders and developers in this project and will look forward to seeing more on this topic!!! :D
Agree with the suggestions. Thanks for the good wishes.

ByteMixer wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:42 am But yeah, it's possible this mod would not be "immersion" compatible with Tedious Travel. At least, not initially. Maybe the mod author for Tedious Travel would find a way to make the player "stick to the roads" by calculating a predetermined path to follow rather than plow over hills and forests "as the crow flies." But that's something for way in the future. We don't even have a working version of roads yet, and it's still heavily concept work at this point.
BadLuckBurt wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:59 pm Tedious Travel could theoretically check in with the road mod to get a road path, if the author is up for supporting it I'm sure something could be worked out.

Roads lead places wether they're in Arena, Daggerfall or whatever TES game you prefer.

[...]

And roads leading nowhere is silly when we might as well make a network out of them.
ByteMixer wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:42 am As for practicality. Roads become practical as just another option for the player to travel around. Maybe it's aimed for the person who wants to wander to another location aimlessly, or to explore and still have a guide point to return to without getting really lost in the wilderness. Some people just hate the idea of using fast travel (and I'm not a fan of Tedious Travel either, but that's on me personally).
Eventually, I'd be happy to coopeate with other modders on ensuring other widely used mods are compatible with the roads mod.
The issue with Tedious Travel also raises an important question. It concerns not only Tedious Travel but also other mods in the future that potentially build upon the roads mod. There is a large array of poosibilities if we do it right.

Why people travel on roads? One thing is that it is a guideline.
1. You can just follow the Hammerfell road and it will lead you to Hammerfell, no need to check your map all the time. Having the player 'know' his or her current position is also a 'cheat', but I understand that without roads, the developers of classic DF did not have an array of better choices to choose from. With roads, that could change.
There could also be signposts at bigger junctions to tell which road is which or mile stones by more significant roads.

2. Second, also important factor. The placement of roads is optimal or close to optimal: you wouldn't find a quicker way to get to your destination anyway, so you just follow the road.
In addition, once the road is there, it is considerably easier to walk a road than to walk on rough terrain, so there should be a speed increase and it should take less fatigue to travel (walk or run) on the roads - the higher the quality of the road, the stronger the benefits.
Mods such as Tedious Travel could take this into account when optimizing the route to take to a particular destination.

3. Third, because a lot of people use roads, a lot of other features can be built around them. (I recall a post from a couple of months back drawing my attention to this fact.) You can meet people on the roads, or avoid roads if you prefer to avoid meeting people. There could be travellng merchants, guard patrols, message or news carriers, fewer of certain kinds of enemies on or near the roads, and more of other kinds (like highwaymen).
There are lots of possibilities apart from having them as decoration.

But for all of that, first, the roads need to be there, and the roads mod needs to be done in a way that is acceptable to a large enough part of the community so other modders build on it. It is a very challenging task. This is why I hesitated to take up the task in the first place and this is why I am excited about all the possibilities this could mean.
Interest in expanding and improving the Magic system, Capitalism and an Unleveled World.

My main quest in the DFU community is my (Mostly) Magic Mod.

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Ralzar
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Re: Roads of Daggerfall

Post by Ralzar »

Once there is an actual working roads mod, I have some thoughts about what could be done either as a seperate mod or as part of the road mod:

When on a road, you can lock yourself to the road. While locked, camera is forced forward and your travel speed is slightly increased. If there are different road types/qualities, have different speed buffs.
This would probably make Tedious Travel work with it without having to do any extra work as long as the road mod manages to take over the camera control from TT.

Alternative: Tedious Road. Have a completely sperate but similar mod to Tedious Travel that specifically only uses roads.

Different spawn table for roads?

Have commoners spawn sometimes? (Allthough this would probably be difficult to make work with the conversation system unless each road counted as part of a city.)

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