Project N - a.k.a. what Daggerfall totally *doesn’t* need? Ok, I’ll do exactly that!

[Arneb]

I'm making a list of "things to do" before releasing a playable test build for ProjectN; this won't obviously be complete location-wise, it will just be there to test which of the "new features" work and which don't, and to test compatibility with existing mods for DFU.

- Generate locations for a new region, preferably something in High Rock (to test the French-Breton names) at the border between Hammerfell and Skyrim (to use two different minor regionalisms for location generation); Dunkarn Haven would be the obvious choice;
- Generate roads for that region;
- Have a satisfactory number of different "hidden locations" to test the new feature;
- Have different kinds of townfolks appear in settlements, with the correct clothes climate-wise;
- Have the new planned Advantages working (Climate Survival, Underground Survival, Sense of Direction, maybe others);

Stuff that maybe will be in the test build, but probably not:
- The new Maquis climate type (I still don't have the ground tiles for that, and having maquis in Dunkarn Haven doesn't make much sense);
- Reworked and rebalanced stats bonus;
- New planned skills;
- New planned spells;
- Paid instant travel;
- Reworked and rebalanced quest system;

[Kingdom]

Any updates?

[Arneb]

Sort of:

- Generate locations for a new region, preferably something in High Rock (to test the French-Breton names) at the border between Hammerfell and Skyrim (to use two different minor regionalisms for location generation); Dunkarn Haven would be the obvious choice;

That takes of few minutes to do, but I'm constantly updating "my" database of RMBs and RDBs to add to the location generator, therefore I think I'll keep that for last;

- Generate roads for that region;

The roads generator works fine, but probably needs some fine tuning, right now it generates way too many roads;

- Have a satisfactory number of different "hidden locations" to test the new feature;

I think I'll have to develop a system for mini-dungeons similar to that of standard dungeons: many different (really tiny) blocks that get combined, thus ensuring a satisfactory diversity with a workable number of blocks;

- Have different kinds of townfolks appear in settlements, with the correct clothes climate-wise;

Everything's kind of fine, I just need more townsfolk graphics...

- Have the new planned Advantages working (Climate Survival, Underground Survival, Sense of Direction, maybe others);

These are done.

[Arneb]

As any inconsiderate dev would do, I’m ignoring my self-made list of things to do, focusing on quite useless stuff:
now dawn and dusk aren’t fixed anymore, but change based on latitude and distance from solstice/equinox.
At the same time, seasons begin/end change based on latitude and altitude: the northern a character goes, and/or the higher the altitude is, the longer winters are, with shorter summers; and vice versa toward the equator of Nirn.
The map I used as a reference is this:
https://images.app.goo.gl/E6PPVgRscr9iTjy9A

[WolverineTheWhite]

This is Amazing. PLEASE YES....

[Arneb]

Hey everyone, long time since the last update!

Let's say I'm still working as much as I can on the project, but since I'm chaotic by nature, I'm obviously working on random stuff that many of you would probably consider unnecessary to the basic implementation of the whole continent to the DFU engine.

But that's it, I really can't help but lose time trying to put in stuff that I find essential to my vision, but probably isn't.

Anyway, I reworked the starting DF behaviour so that now there are some more question to answer that determine where in the world the character starts, if he owns a family house to start with and stuff like that. After that I noticed that I couldn't leave biography generation as it was (because it wouldn't take into account the new randomised character origins), so now I'm working on that, too. I will probably need to rework the whole question/history system.

After that, I really *need* to add armor skills à la Morrowind, but that should be much easier.

What else? Much I think, since I worked on plenty of stuff in the last few months. But yeah, ProjectN didn't die, it's still alive and kicking!

[tron_travolta]

When I discovered DFU, one of the first places my mind went was "I wonder how big you could push the landmass?" This is impressive work. I've only just begun familiarizing myself with the DFU source code but I'm an experienced C# dev by trade. Let me know if I can be of help at any point!

[Arneb]

When I discovered DFU, one of the first places my mind went was "I wonder how big you could push the landmass?"

When I started the project, there were many details I didn't take into consideration. Probably the most important was that, differently from Vanilla and DFU, it wouldn't have been possible to make the game have the whole map loaded at all times.
I subsequently developed a "tile" system: every map is divided in 64x64 pixel tiles, and the game loads 9 of those at a time (so we're talking about a 192x192 map). It's been quite a long try/error process, but at the moment it seems to work sufficiently well.

This is impressive work. I've only just begun familiarizing myself with the DFU source code but I'm an experienced C# dev by trade. Let me know if I can be of help at any point!

Right now I'm the only one working on the ProjectN code (actually, I'm the only one working on every aspect of it ), while I get any other asset from DFU modders that are working on related stuff for main DFU. There's plenty of stuff that needs to be done, but my code (me being a very amateur coder) is quite a mess to work with.
Anyway, if/when you feel like contributing to it, just write here or send me a DM, any help is greatly appreciated.

[pizzaforfree]

I just found this project after inquiring if anyone else had thought about doing a 1:1 Tamriel in DFU. I'm sure we're not the only ones that think a game on the full scale continent would be cool as hell, but it appears this project isn't quite focused enough to get much outside help. I have to agree with others in this thread that many of the things you want to hardcode would push people away from supporting the project, mainly removing fast travel outright.

There are very good game design reasons that features like fast travel, world maps, compass, etc exist; they're tedious and difficult to play large scale video games without. And this project goes far beyond large and into colossal territory. Outright removing them isn't a good call. Making an option to remove them if the player chooses would satisfy all the involved camps, those that want any of these features and those that don't.
Most people don't have time for the massive cross-country treks that playing Project N would entail. I agree that having instantaneous fast travel across a full-scale Tamriel would be counter to the projects goals, but having the option wouldn't hurt, and having time-accelerated travel, ala Travel Options, would benefit both sides of the argument; it would offer less downtime, making time spent traveling more meaningful, while still being able to explore when something catches the player's attention.
Removing color-coded town maps definitely give the player a more meaningful lost experience, but would also just add tedium for players that don't want to be totally lost.
Taking away NPCs marking locations on your maps is outright unrealistic, and that feels counter to your goals as laid out.
Taking away the compass when all quest givers can tell you about a quest objective is the cardinal direction it can be found in will just make it impossible to complete any quests.

You have to respect people's time if you want their support. I can't code, so forking Project N isn't really an option for me to get the parts of it that I want without the parts that I don't.

All that said, I really love most of this concept and I can't wait to get my grubby little paws on it, I just think some parts of it will introduce too much friction for players that just wanna run around a full-scale Tamriel without feeling like they're wasting their time.

[HaseOster]

Most people don't have time for the massive cross-country treks that playing Project N would entail. I agree that having instantaneous fast travel across a full-scale Tamriel would be counter to the projects goals, but having the option wouldn't hurt, and having time-accelerated travel, ala Travel Options, would benefit both sides of the argument; it would offer less downtime, making time spent traveling more meaningful, while still being able to explore when something catches the player's attention.
Removing color-coded town maps definitely give the player a more meaningful lost experience, but would also just add tedium for players that don't want to be totally lost.

As a person who uses Travel Options' travelling by roads utility extensively, I should very much argee on that.
I would also add that TO would need a bit more work to be a fully viable travel alternative:
- Right now the accelerated travel to a destination actually ignores roads (which is a critical flaw);
- Accelerating past x10 speed can lead to falling into The Void (which prevents you from covering long distances in a reasonable amount of time);
- The road encounters should have much more thought put into them to make the experience really good and not just "okay for a dedicated player".