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Terminal Tranquility 1: Paninga
You might have seen this title appear on the Upcoming DMODs list, but I haven't exactly told anything about it yet. The reason for this is simply that it still is far from being finished, and I feel that announcing DMODs far before they're finished will often lead to disapointments. But I already announced it (sort of) through the upcoming DMODs list, so here's an update on my latest project:
A bit of history
Back in 2005 I finished The Scourger. Though I was happy with the way it turned out I still found it lacking in some ways. I found the story too linear, the tasks too stereotype and the characters uninspiring. So after taking a DMODing hiatus I decided it was time for change. At that time I was playing Morrowind a lot. So I was inspired to make a DMOD like it, with a huge, coherent world with lot's of different things to do.
So I started a new DMOD, called Jorn (working title). It failed quite quickly, largely due to insufficient planning and a pretty unimaginative story. I never entirely let the idea go away though, and later it formed the basis of a new project, now know as Terminal Tranquility.
The story
No matter how often Dink saves the world there's always a new villain preparing to destroy the world. King Daniel realizes this and believes there must be a reason for it. If Dink stops saving the world it might become redundant to save the world altogether he argues. So Dink is pushed into retirement and spends the next seven years of his life in a small bordertown. After seven years Dink has a disturbing dream...
Might Milder be responsible for putting his mother's house on fire? Dink has to know, so he wanders off east, to Paninga. It should only be a short trip...
The series
As the title might suggest this DMOD is part of a series. It will probably contain three DMODs, though I might stop after two. The idea is that these three parts are directly linked through one continuing story. The styles of the different parts will be quite different though. The first is pretty classic, the second one is more of a gigantic journey and the third one... Well I'm not quite sure yet...
The entire series will be placed into a new country, called Paninga. I'm planning on creating most of my new DMODs into this new country in an effort to create something of an coherent DMODing universe. Originally this was planned as one huge world ready for the player to be discovered. But now I rather use portions of it to create DMODs, and to provide it with a consistent background.
Development
Well, as I mentioned on the forums a few times progress is going pretty slow. I hardly did anything for the last year or so. This had to do with the fact that I was disappointed in it. Originally the idea had been to create one large coherent world where the player had all the opportunity to walk around and discover the landscape, and to have an epic main quest to go with it.
Last week I started working on it again. I played through some of the parts I already made and discovered it wasn't so bad as I remembered it. In fact, I quite enjoyed playing it, especially considering I played through a very rough version. So I decided to pick up DMODing again, but to make the DMOD a whole lot less ambitious. I went from around seven areas to five and decided to cut a lot out of the storyline. It will still qualify as an epic, but it will be shorter than it was planned to be.
Many features I had planned will probably never make it into the game. I planned on making a lot of new weapons and magic, but I'll probably stick largely to the standard ones. And the entire alchemy system I was planning has been abandoned.
Still, I think it will be a good DMOD. It will definitly not be the best DMOD ever, but I think it will be an enjoyable epic. And considering the amount of large DMODs we are getting nowadays I think something like this is very welcome.
Features
-One continous landmass, which means you can access a large area. (Atleast it's different from the Scourger in one way...)
-A semi-linear storyline (Some tasks can be performed in different orders, and some problems can be solved in more than one way).
-Multiple endings (I think two, maybe three)
-A few sidequests (some can actually influence the endings)
-A revised level-up system. Though this is the simplest feature of them all, it's essential. I just hate to level up a single point when you have like 50 strength already.
-A journal. I had a journal in the scourger, I'm intending to do something similar for this DMOD. It'll be a little more complicated as this DMOD is only semi-linear. But I guess it makes it all the more useful.
-And hopefully the same elements that made the Scourger a good DMOD.
Practical info
I haven't set a release date, it's finished when it's finished. And that moment is quite far away probably. Currently I have a lot of things done already, but it has hardly been polished and balanced so I'll still have some work to do...
I might post a few updates as the story progresses, but I most of the time progression is just progression and nothing really exciting happens. So don't count on a lot of updates.
Oh, and some screenshots to keep you happy:
A road
A cave
Abandoned campfire
Fighting
Current progress (30-Jul-2011): 34%
Note that progress estimates are very rough and wildly inaccurate. Keep this in mind when you see the progress changing! Also keep in mind that this is the progress estimate for the first (raw) version, the final version will need some more testing and refinement...
You might have seen this title appear on the Upcoming DMODs list, but I haven't exactly told anything about it yet. The reason for this is simply that it still is far from being finished, and I feel that announcing DMODs far before they're finished will often lead to disapointments. But I already announced it (sort of) through the upcoming DMODs list, so here's an update on my latest project:
A bit of history
Back in 2005 I finished The Scourger. Though I was happy with the way it turned out I still found it lacking in some ways. I found the story too linear, the tasks too stereotype and the characters uninspiring. So after taking a DMODing hiatus I decided it was time for change. At that time I was playing Morrowind a lot. So I was inspired to make a DMOD like it, with a huge, coherent world with lot's of different things to do.
So I started a new DMOD, called Jorn (working title). It failed quite quickly, largely due to insufficient planning and a pretty unimaginative story. I never entirely let the idea go away though, and later it formed the basis of a new project, now know as Terminal Tranquility.
The story
No matter how often Dink saves the world there's always a new villain preparing to destroy the world. King Daniel realizes this and believes there must be a reason for it. If Dink stops saving the world it might become redundant to save the world altogether he argues. So Dink is pushed into retirement and spends the next seven years of his life in a small bordertown. After seven years Dink has a disturbing dream...
Might Milder be responsible for putting his mother's house on fire? Dink has to know, so he wanders off east, to Paninga. It should only be a short trip...
The series
As the title might suggest this DMOD is part of a series. It will probably contain three DMODs, though I might stop after two. The idea is that these three parts are directly linked through one continuing story. The styles of the different parts will be quite different though. The first is pretty classic, the second one is more of a gigantic journey and the third one... Well I'm not quite sure yet...
The entire series will be placed into a new country, called Paninga. I'm planning on creating most of my new DMODs into this new country in an effort to create something of an coherent DMODing universe. Originally this was planned as one huge world ready for the player to be discovered. But now I rather use portions of it to create DMODs, and to provide it with a consistent background.
Development
Well, as I mentioned on the forums a few times progress is going pretty slow. I hardly did anything for the last year or so. This had to do with the fact that I was disappointed in it. Originally the idea had been to create one large coherent world where the player had all the opportunity to walk around and discover the landscape, and to have an epic main quest to go with it.
Last week I started working on it again. I played through some of the parts I already made and discovered it wasn't so bad as I remembered it. In fact, I quite enjoyed playing it, especially considering I played through a very rough version. So I decided to pick up DMODing again, but to make the DMOD a whole lot less ambitious. I went from around seven areas to five and decided to cut a lot out of the storyline. It will still qualify as an epic, but it will be shorter than it was planned to be.
Many features I had planned will probably never make it into the game. I planned on making a lot of new weapons and magic, but I'll probably stick largely to the standard ones. And the entire alchemy system I was planning has been abandoned.
Still, I think it will be a good DMOD. It will definitly not be the best DMOD ever, but I think it will be an enjoyable epic. And considering the amount of large DMODs we are getting nowadays I think something like this is very welcome.
Features
-One continous landmass, which means you can access a large area. (Atleast it's different from the Scourger in one way...)
-A semi-linear storyline (Some tasks can be performed in different orders, and some problems can be solved in more than one way).
-Multiple endings (I think two, maybe three)
-A few sidequests (some can actually influence the endings)
-A revised level-up system. Though this is the simplest feature of them all, it's essential. I just hate to level up a single point when you have like 50 strength already.
-A journal. I had a journal in the scourger, I'm intending to do something similar for this DMOD. It'll be a little more complicated as this DMOD is only semi-linear. But I guess it makes it all the more useful.
-And hopefully the same elements that made the Scourger a good DMOD.
Practical info
I haven't set a release date, it's finished when it's finished. And that moment is quite far away probably. Currently I have a lot of things done already, but it has hardly been polished and balanced so I'll still have some work to do...
I might post a few updates as the story progresses, but I most of the time progression is just progression and nothing really exciting happens. So don't count on a lot of updates.
Oh, and some screenshots to keep you happy:
A road
A cave
Abandoned campfire
Fighting
Current progress (30-Jul-2011): 34%
Note that progress estimates are very rough and wildly inaccurate. Keep this in mind when you see the progress changing! Also keep in mind that this is the progress estimate for the first (raw) version, the final version will need some more testing and refinement...
