FILE OF THE MONTH WINNER - MARCH 2014

NEW!! - This file page is no longer supported

The full mod "Heritage Home Part 2" is now out HERE

You do not need to download this version to play the full version


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What is Heritage Home?

Heritage Home is a large story-driven adventure which will take the player through around 20 new environments in the search for a fabled vault named “Heritage Home”.

The story revolves around the search for a place only known about in legend and a mysterious figure whom very few are likely to discuss with outsiders. While on the trail searching for this fabled "Home", you can expect to fight and explore your way through a range of unique and expansive locations.

Part 1 of this mod involves the search for Heritage Home and Part 2 will be largely centered around exploring within Heritage Home itself and discovering its dark secret.

Each environment has been for me an exercise in creativity and level design and I have endeavored to bring you areas that not only fit seamlessly into the world created by Bethesda, but (hopefully) surpass them in design and magnitude.
This is my first ever mod, and so it will be lacking in some areas of modding, and for this I do apologize. I am not able to write scripts myself, nor program quests, nor include many of the things that top-notch modders include in their work, but what my mod clearly lacks in these areas, I hope it makes up for in ambitious level design, story creation, writing and realism.

How do I start?
First, I need to say right off the bat that you need:
FOSE
Archive Invalidation – Validated
All 5 DLCs.

Where does Heritage Home formally begin?
To begin, you need to travel to Little Lamplight, and start the adventure by having a look inside the shack near the entrance to LL. There are clues regarding where to go next inside that shack.

What level should I be to play this mod?
This mod is best suited for a high level player, so preferably end-game or level 15-20 players are fine to enjoy this mod. Any lower than that and you might find locks too hard to pick, and fights too hard to survive.

What tips can you give me in order to more successfully progress through this mod?
I have designed this mod to be 'linear in an open world environment', which means that while you ultimately have to "complete objective A followed by objective B in Area 1 in order to gain entry to Area 2" and so on (for example); it isn't always immediately apparent how to go about doing this and this mean using your brain and figuring things out on your own.
Simply put: There is no hand-holding.

Tips include:
* Reading notes and terminal entries very carefully, and considering the ideas and implied references found within them.
In many cases these notes and entries are written purposefully to aid in your progress, and in other instances they are written to flesh-out the world you are exploring and add further depth to the story.
* Using your eyes. The environments I created are usually a mix of the aesthetically pleasing and absolutely deliberate in their design, and this means that sometimes you might need to look around and take note of where you are, and where you want to get to.
For example: A found note on a table references a locked door that a group of wastelanders tried to pick, but could not, and beyond that door, they hoped, would be a means of deactivating a powerful forcefield which prevented them from going lower in the area they were in. So, as the player, who similarly needs to pass this forcefield, it become apparent where to look in order to do so, hopefully, and all this is to be gleaned from reading this note.


Installation:
Simply extract the contents from the RAR and then drop the three files into your Data folder. Then activate the mod in FOMM or NMM. I also suggest manually installing this mod.

PC requirements:
I honestly don’t know. I’m not a computer engineer, and this mod (in its entirety) literally took around 3 years for me to make, but the beefier your rig the better.
I did not optimize all the levels (sorry, guys), many of them were optimized, and navmeshed too, but not all, simply because of family commitments and time restraints, and I say this because the environments themselves are extremely demanding on the PC processing power. So be wary, I expect that most of you are running average to high-end rigs, and this mod is for you. For those on laptops, or older rigs however, this mod might be very demanding, and for this I really do apologize.


Is Heritage Home a companion-friendly mod?
Unfortunately no. It has partially and fully navmeshed cells, but also there are completely un-navmeshed cells. While it is not impossible to bring a companion, you may find at times the enjoyment of playing to be hindered by bringing them. Sorry about that.

Biggest Contributors:
Firstly, a very big thank you goes out to Danthegeek, ChuckSteel, and WilliamSea for all generously giving me their permission to use their wonderful mods to help construct my Heritage Home plugin.
Many of Chucksteel’s ‘DCInteriors Project’ assets, some of WilliamSea’s ‘Levelers’ Chamber’ scripts and assets, and Danthegeek’s amazing ‘Underground Hideout’ assets and scripts feature in this mod and I do not take any credit for their creation whatsoever and can only express absolute appreciation at being given permission to use them.

Again, thank you very much all of you for your generosity.


Credits and Permissions:
See the link in the file options for more info on each of these topics.

Conflicts:
To the best of my knowledge there are none. But please let me know if you find any abrupt CTD issues when you are playing. (Check where it happens, disable the mod, check if it stops etc.)

Programs used to make this mod:
GECK (The best free tool I ever had the pleasure of downloading in my life)
NifSkope (For replacing textures and managing filepath directories)
FO3Edit (For cleaning up edits in my plugin)
FOMM (For installing & managing mods of course)
FO3 Plugin Utility (To create my .esm files)
Microsoft Word (To process my writing before inserting it into GECK)

Inspirations:
A World Of Pain 4 Fallout 3 – AWOP4FO3
Shadows and Dust V.1 & V.2
DC Interiors Project
A Quest for Heaven parts 1 and 2 (not played part 3 yet, but it looks incredible)
Underground Hideout
Nightmare Realm
Undiscovered Capital
Mothership Zeta Crew
Arefu Expanded
The Arbor
and many many others

Collaborators:
My wife and daughter who gave me endless support and even more patience and tolerance. Love you girls!
Prensa. I could not have made this mod without your constant advice, help and guidance. Thank you, Prensa my friend!

A loud shout-out goes to the excellent General Varus II, and Prensa for being the first to test Heritage Home for me. Many thanks for the help BETA testing the mod for me. All of your help and suggestions have been invaluable.

General Varus II, I truly appreciate the kindness and generosity you showed in playing through the mod for me so many times, and often at a minute's notice when I was stressing out about something, especially since I know how busy you are with your own brilliant mod, “The Arbor”.


Note on forum use:
* Keep things civil. This should go without saying.
* Please don’t post spoilers, and this includes describing what you did in order to progress to your current point in Heritage Home. Send me a pm, or write a post asking a question, such as “So I am in Engineering, and I need to find a lockchip, anyone found it yet?” and then wait for someone to pm you. Do not post spoilers. This should also go without saying.
* Keep me informed of bugs please. I do care about these, and everything, large or small is important.
* I appreciate that you may have requests, but I probably won’t be adding things simply because you want them.

Thanks:
Thanks Bethesda and the GECK team for bringing us this game and the tool to build our own content.
Thanks everyone on the Nexus for providing a great place to come and share our work and discuss mods and modding.


Heritage Home Part 2:
So what’s next for Heritage Home?

As it stands, Heritage Home is being released in 2 parts, and it should be said that the second part is largely complete. The principal environments are finished and only a small amount of world-building, cluttering, and story creation needs to be added, plus inhabiting the cells with NPCs and enemies and then testing. I am studying this year, so it is impossible to say how long it will be before Part 2 is released. But I will be on the forums to help with people playing Part 1 and to reply to comments and questions.

Thanks and have fun playing Heritage Home

Griffin aka RafftheSweetling