In relation to the mod's atmosphere, I think it shouldve been taken a step further. Just finished it by the way. You've gotta keep in mind Anchorage was a literal warzone with combat similar to ww2 due to Fallout's lore. I'm not sure if you've watched a film called Stalingrad (the 1993 one, you can watch it completely in youtube for free) but I think this mod could use a touch of... that. Because of the atmosphere you're going for I think it would be quite fitting to show the horrors of war and the consequences that can still be seen even after the (literal) end of the world. Anchorage is cold; inhospitable as you said. Many soldiers probably died due to the cold, starvation, lack of resources, accidents (rock climbing, paratroopers...), etc; each one of them a human being with friends and families to go back to, with problems, worries, feelings, insecurities...
I think you could add this to the mod in many ways. In my opinion it would boost the dead, depressing and oppressive atmosphere the mod has. Skeletons engulfed by the snow with their respective headgear nearby (such as the winterized helmet or winterized chinese hat) or weaponry, indicating their side, granting them of some form of identity, regardless of what that identity represents. Maybe two soldiers from both sides who died together freezing despite of of their side, two soldiers who refused tho see each other as enemies but as humans instead. All of these corpses being people who died for a pointless war that only lead to total devastation to everyone because of the interests of a few.
Sorry for the rant. Really loved your mod and enjoyed just walking through it and revisiting Anchorage. Thank you. I'd love to know what you think about this.
I'm glad you enjoyed my mod. Thanks for the feedback; your suggestions would definitely boost the atmosphere of the mod.
So in 2015, the only thing left on my mod's to-do list preventing its public release was "improve atmosphere; add skeletons, more terrain modification, evidence of war, etc". But in the end, the changes I made were only about 10% of what I'd originally imagined doing. What you've described is essentially the vision that I originally had in my mind. I think I held back on deploying more than a couple of outdoor skeletons for a couple of reasons:
- I just wanted to finally get the mod released in a "completed" state, even if it didn't look exactly as I'd originally planned - The Anchorage war ended about ten months before the world ended, and I imagined that during those ten months, most or all of the corpses were cleaned up from the battlefield - I thought that most skeletons would've been buried or eroded away after 200 years of snow and wind
I did try to include some indoor skeletons and various blood stains, but yeah, the bottom line is I agree with you. So if I ever release an update for this mod, it would be at atmospheric update to somehow make the place look like even more of a hellscape.
A few years ago, I started a project for post-war Anchorage, with the only difference being to make it independent of the Official Operation Anchorage DLC. Who knows that I can complete it and share it with you as soon as possible... because there is so much work to do, but above all I think it really deserves a lot. #DarknessSquall Great job for your mod ;)
Did you really just come to the comments to plug your own mod that doesnt even exist yet while insinuating yours is better? Nah. The real difference between yours and Squall's is their mod exists. Yours doesnt. Freakin plugs...
In fact, I've been going on with the Post-War Anchorage Project for about 1 year or more. So I never reported it to Fallout Nexus, for the simple reason that it is still incomplete. Also I never said mine is the best of what other members have done. What I said is that mine will have to be independent of the Official Anchorage DLC. But there is really a lot to work on because of it, especially because it is a very large extension of the game at the programming level. And if there is any other professional modder in this post, by reading this he already knows what I mean. I also create mods for those who own an Xbox 360 modified with RGH, for those who don't know, can only imagine how complex it is to develop a mod for an Xbox. I want to clarify that most of the mods created by me are all for Xbox 360 with RGH modification :)
A post-war Anchorage without using assets from Anchorage DLC? Very ambitious..I don't have an Xbox 360, but I do hope you complete your mod as well one day.
Well what happened was: another mod came out called Anchorage 2277 when I was about 90% done with mine, and I was kicking myself for not finishing mine sooner. Similar names, similar themes - I didn't want to step on his toes.
Then the years flew by and it always bothered me that I hadn't finished the mod, so I woke up one day and modded for 14 hours straight, then did it again the next day until I was satisfied with the result. (Side note - take breaks and do stretches if modding for this long, I didn't and was in pain for a while because of it. Apparently manipulating the camera with precision in the GECK puts a lot of muscle and nerve strain on the right arm and neck)
The biggest holdup was that I don't upload incomplete mods, and my original design plan for Anchorage 2278 involved quests, NPCs, new dungeon locations...I realized it was too ambitious, so I scaled it down so that I could consider it complete. The most obvious example is the huge size reduction I gave to the cave installation that connects the Overlook to the Cliffs, but the original dungeon was too big anyway so it worked out well. I have newfound respect for the concept of "cut content" in games now, lol.
Always nice to see people working on anchorage content! Working on a Pre-War expansion to Anchorage myself so it's nice to see the opposite of that here! Good Work! :)
Just a chill jaunt around post-war Alaska? Sounds interesting. I got a load of other quest mods in my current playthrough, so idk when I'll get to this one, but I'm def installing it~
Cool, I hope you enjoy it. It's worth installing if you have Operation: Anchorage active because I included a few Bug Fixes and cut content related to that DLC. Most notable is the fact that the Winterized Power Armor reward no longer has infinite health and will degrade with use; Bethesda made a mistake and added the version from the simulation to the base game.
One thing I think would be cool to add to this would be if someone retextured the fat bears from this mod into polar bears https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18818
Though even the brown bear would work too since kodiak live in Alaska. Maybe these bear companions added there? https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19497
Anchorage 2278 is a bleak, inhospitable landscape, and so it's totally devoid of life by design. But there is one section where I could imagine some bears living and hanging out: near the Ice Camp area. You can stray off the path a bit and see a more natural area where wildlife wouldn't look out of place.
The first mod you linked, #18818, is only a texture replacer for Yao Guai. It is a modder's resource free for anyone to use, so the obstacle is turning its files into a new, separate creature so It wouldn't override the vanilla Yao Guai... I tried to reverse-engineer mod #19497 since their bear companions are separate entities, but we would still need that author's permission to add their bears into my mod.
The good news is you can still get Kodiak bears into my mod yourself by cracking it open with the GECK, navigating to the Worldspace "SquallAnchorageBattle", and dropping one or more Yao Guai wherever you want. Then you just activate the texture replacer from mod #18818 and they'd look like bears. Might run into some Navmesh problems depending on where you put them, though.
18 comments
I think you could add this to the mod in many ways. In my opinion it would boost the dead, depressing and oppressive atmosphere the mod has. Skeletons engulfed by the snow with their respective headgear nearby (such as the winterized helmet or winterized chinese hat) or weaponry, indicating their side, granting them of some form of identity, regardless of what that identity represents. Maybe two soldiers from both sides who died together freezing despite of of their side, two soldiers who refused tho see each other as enemies but as humans instead. All of these corpses being people who died for a pointless war that only lead to total devastation to everyone because of the interests of a few.
Sorry for the rant. Really loved your mod and enjoyed just walking through it and revisiting Anchorage. Thank you. I'd love to know what you think about this.
So in 2015, the only thing left on my mod's to-do list preventing its public release was "improve atmosphere; add skeletons, more terrain modification, evidence of war, etc". But in the end, the changes I made were only about 10% of what I'd originally imagined doing. What you've described is essentially the vision that I originally had in my mind. I think I held back on deploying more than a couple of outdoor skeletons for a couple of reasons:
- I just wanted to finally get the mod released in a "completed" state, even if it didn't look exactly as I'd originally planned
- The Anchorage war ended about ten months before the world ended, and I imagined that during those ten months, most or all of the corpses were cleaned up from the battlefield
- I thought that most skeletons would've been buried or eroded away after 200 years of snow and wind
I did try to include some indoor skeletons and various blood stains, but yeah, the bottom line is I agree with you. So if I ever release an update for this mod, it would be at atmospheric update to somehow make the place look like even more of a hellscape.
Ya, come back to us when you actually have something to talk about!
Then the years flew by and it always bothered me that I hadn't finished the mod, so I woke up one day and modded for 14 hours straight, then did it again the next day until I was satisfied with the result. (Side note - take breaks and do stretches if modding for this long, I didn't and was in pain for a while because of it. Apparently manipulating the camera with precision in the GECK puts a lot of muscle and nerve strain on the right arm and neck)
The biggest holdup was that I don't upload incomplete mods, and my original design plan for Anchorage 2278 involved quests, NPCs, new dungeon locations...I realized it was too ambitious, so I scaled it down so that I could consider it complete. The most obvious example is the huge size reduction I gave to the cave installation that connects the Overlook to the Cliffs, but the original dungeon was too big anyway so it worked out well. I have newfound respect for the concept of "cut content" in games now, lol.
Though even the brown bear would work too since kodiak live in Alaska. Maybe these bear companions added there? https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19497
The first mod you linked, #18818, is only a texture replacer for Yao Guai. It is a modder's resource free for anyone to use, so the obstacle is turning its files into a new, separate creature so It wouldn't override the vanilla Yao Guai... I tried to reverse-engineer mod #19497 since their bear companions are separate entities, but we would still need that author's permission to add their bears into my mod.
Here's a screenshot I took while testing (click the link)
The good news is you can still get Kodiak bears into my mod yourself by cracking it open with the GECK, navigating to the Worldspace "SquallAnchorageBattle", and dropping one or more Yao Guai wherever you want. Then you just activate the texture replacer from mod #18818 and they'd look like bears. Might run into some Navmesh problems depending on where you put them, though.