Skyrim and Oblivion mods compared with Neverwinter nights.

[BigOnes69]

There were many more story mods for Neverwinter Nights than Skyrim or Oblivion.

The quality of the stories was much higher in my opinion than anything available for Skyrim or Oblivion.

Skyrim and oblivion has the graphics and lighting, hands down, but Neverwinter nights made music and story boards easier to incorporate in the mod.

The combination of lighting, music, and a lot of the modders were excellent story tellers. The top 100 were riddled with amazing story mods even though the graphics were not there. You felt something when you completed the mods. There was a lot of plot and theme incorporated into the quest line. Skyrim and Oblivion are all visual.

Has our thought process changed since that period or is it the hardware that changed thinking?

Or is it not being able to incorporate music into the mod?

Or a combination of both?

Back then I had a girlfriend who could by lighting, music, and rearranging the furniture set the tone for any mood she wanted to theme that evening.

Have we lost this ability?

Why?

 

[Jayce Dimmer]

It's the software.

 

Bethesda's modding tools are really only any use for lightweight guff, such as moving objects. Anything with the slightest depth will be an absolute pain to implement.

[Kain82]

Also most fans of Neverwinter Nights, are traditional D&D fans, and love a good story over action.  I know, because I am one of them.  I've downloaded tons of story focused modules for Neverwinter Nights.

 

The only ones I can think of that have a good story for Oblivion.

 

Malevolent

 

Tears of the Fiend

 

I know none for Skyrim.

 

Also one must remember that Skyrim is not an rpg in a true sense.  So most of the mod makers don't make any good story orientated mods for it.  COD fans play Skyrim, do you think COD fans play Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind?

 

Morrowind on the other hand is their best and truest RPG.  There were many high quality story mods done for it.  Like the Illuminated Order and Great House Dagoth mods.

 

You can blame only Bethesda for the drop in quality story mods, due to their catering of "casuals."

 

 

[Rayblue]

This is again like comparing apples and oranges.

 

Also has to do with the complexity of editing tools for which to make custom quests, and the knowledge of the mod author.

 

When trying to make a story/quest for Skyrim, you have to juggle several balls at once, what with the technical rigmarole of making your levels, placing the NPCs and the clutter, and then scripting, navmeshes; you then had to test and debug, before packing all of it and uploading to Steam or motherfucking Nex, praying that the end users don't pick on you for giving a buggy mod. 

 

This is why we don't see a lot of complete and sophisticated storytelling mods for Skyrim.

[Emily]

You'll have to own a great deal of creativity & data asset to make oblivion the best game of the century.

[BigOnes69]

It would be nice to see in Skyrim because the graphics are night and day. But even the Skyrim main story line is boring in comparison and they have an entire team to do their programming. Its the same old story line over and over. I just do not see any imagination there and their political correctness holds them back even though all of these games are geared for an adult audience. Music can add a lot of flavor but no one is incorporating it. Story boarding can add to the storyline but its not there.

Without the imagination society is just a bunch of sheep waiting to become slaves.

[ghostnova]

I think it just comes down to the toolset. The Aurora toolset is very good for creating stories. The Bethesda tools are better suited at other things.

 

Since DLC became a trend, developers stopped releasing modding tools. Nowadays we get 1 toolset released every couple of years... and hence the story mods went away.

 

I've been keeping an eye on Kickstarter for story based RPGs that promise to release modding tools because currently our best tool (the Aurora Toolset) is over 10 years old. So far Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 have promised modding tools. I know the first one is out... just haven't had a chance to try the tools yet.

[Angrybird]

My games in morrowind were easily 400+ hours, in oblivion hard to get 200, skyrim 100 h is streching it.