I think this is a good idea for a mod. IMO, Bethesda doesn't do anything to differentiate many of the places in their games. I was very, very disappointed in how all the Inns in Skyrim are identical, for example.
What I'd like to see in the IC shops is more merchandise! A lot more. Most of them have this large floor space, and they'll have a few items on display here and there, and that's it! It's the Imperial City, for gosh sakes! "THE" place to go if you want to buy anything. I've even heard others say the same... I don't know if doing such a thing would unbalance the game, but it would sure make for a more believable shopping experience. I also think that the smiths should be able to make items for you. They should only be vanilla items, and things the smith doesn't have in their inventory already. They should take an appropriate time to make ( at least a week, except for things like daggers, which should take a few days. After all, you're not the only customer! ), and they should be more expensive than the vanilla item would normally be, but not much more expensive. Come to think of it, why shouldn't you be able to commission a scroll or staff from the mages, as well? Although I think the commissioned items should be vanilla items, each vendor might have a 'specialty' item. Rasheda sells such an item in the vanilla game. As long as they weren't too powerful.
I've always liked the outdoor dining areas I've seen in the screenies for the Better Cities mod. Outside the Feed Bag, for instance. I hope you will consider doing something of that nature for folks who can't use the Better Cities mod, or who don't want to for some reason.
Oh, one more thing: 'Spell Teacher' might be a better name than 'Spell Learner'. Just sayin'.
Yes, I know I'm suggesting you heap piles more work on your head. Please feel very free to ignore my suggestions entirely, but I hope you are able to make some use of them, and thanks for the work you've put in so far.
It is actually a good list of ideas, and I think I'll do them to my best ability. Well, try to, at least!
Also, adding a few items and merchandise to vendors wouldn't harm the game, since placing vanilla items generally is level-based. Mod items, would always appear though
And, doing something similar to Better Cities is a good idea, too, I think I'll take a look into that.
EDIT: The smithy idea to craft weapons for you would generally be similar to that of Imperial Dragon Armor. I suppose I could make a similar script for X amount of time and have the item appear waiting for you in the shop!
really great ideas and I really hope you find time to look into them, just a quick technical thought, you'd probably have to keep a compatible version of the mod that does not affect cells outside of the shops for people using mods that change city cells.
I for one use better cities and would hate to have to choose between these mods.
I was just wondering more about the robbing portion of this mod. So, even if you rob the place undetected, the shopkeeper will still be aggressive at you?
Just a question, because I like the idea of robbing stores and getting away with it perfectly.
Ah, good point. The store owner won't aggro you as long as you're undetected. This is still tricky since they follow you around the store and watch you, and generally chest placement is going to be behind the shopkeeper, so you're going to have to improvise to get into it undetected.
Alternatively, you can speak to the NPC, select a Rob dialogue option, and they'll either submit to you and give up their money or exit dialogue immediately and enable aggro, based off their disposition. If they dislike you, they're highly more inclined to try to kill you. If they seem to like you, then they have a higher chance of giving up and calling the guards. (Robbing them WILL set their disp to 0 after the rob is over.)
Sorry for not updating much, but ah, sorta been busy and forgot about modding this here I'll have to get back to work soon.
New massive update - Been gone for a long time, but just decided to continue my work with this project. This project now has added:
Merchant resizing - I've resized and edited the merchant's skill to match their race, spell lists, and body size. Body size I have determined by job, age, and skill levels. For example, Rohassan I have made bigger, since she is a smith, and rather than making her a mage, she uses a fine steel claymore, rather than that rusty bucket of a sword.
Lots of more shop content - Added many more weapons into The Fighting Chance, and other shops. The categories of the weapons are judged by what shop it is. I've made it seem more organized, as if it were "on display". I mean, I keep finding Middle Class items within the IC Market. Like HareDeLune said, this is the damned IC Market, not Bravil. High-class items. I hate how just the castles have high class items. Really, merchants in the MAIN go-to place to shop at should be fairly rich, don't you think?
Less window lighting - Bethesda was so lazy to create actual window light that they just added cavelight to the windows. Seriously, Bethesda? It's actually CaveBlue100. AKA, ugly ass lighting, colored terribly, and makes the room lighting seem really crappy. I've added many more candles and hanging lanterns to fill up the room with some light.
Dining areas - Dining areas added for some shops, they may include a small table with some meat and corn, or perhaps a large table to fit a family of two or three. These serve for either you or the shopkeepers, but do know that the items on the plate aren't yours.
More darker wood - I left out some areas with the dark wood because I felt like it might've overdone it, but I decided, nah, it looks damn good. I have left out a few parts like in Mystic Emporium, there are two counter tops that are regular, but a counter top that's rounded in the center of them polished. (Adding the small little details)
Detailed candles - The candles are bland as hell, and always look the same. I've fixed this, by creating different shades of the candles. Some are very pure white, some are dark brown, some are burnt yellow. You'll see this variation in some stores.
Robbing (Highly Alpha, Still Scripting) - You can now rob stores. You can pick the lock on their store merchandise chest, and steal SOME (not all for the sake of you not being able to steal everything every 72 hrs and then just sell it at a fence or some crap.) of their goods. Soon, upon breaking in, the merchant will automatically become aggressive and outright hate you. Their disposition will immediately drop to 0 and their aggressiveness will increase, likely resulting in an attack. Breaking automatically adds a bounty of 1250, (Not scripted yet, as I have said, extremely alpha stage)and guards will pursue you. (Note that with certain mods like Guard Overhaul will only apply that bounty to the specific city, as stated in their mod.)
Hey, I love the idea of this mod however ever time i start the game I get effects from this thing called Orb of Knowledge and it just throws me in the air and I cant do anything and I know it is this mod because i activated all my mods 1 by 1 and it only happened with this one why am i getting this
Give Feedback
18 comments
What I'd like to see in the IC shops is more merchandise! A lot more. Most of them have this large floor space, and they'll have a few items on display here and there, and that's it! It's the Imperial City, for gosh sakes! "THE" place to go if you want to buy anything. I've even heard others say the same...
I don't know if doing such a thing would unbalance the game, but it would sure make for a more believable shopping experience.
I also think that the smiths should be able to make items for you. They should only be vanilla items, and things the smith doesn't have in their inventory already. They should take an appropriate time to make ( at least a week, except for things like daggers, which should take a few days. After all, you're not the only customer! ), and they should be more expensive than the vanilla item would normally be, but not much more expensive.
Come to think of it, why shouldn't you be able to commission a scroll or staff from the mages, as well? Although I think the commissioned items should be vanilla items, each vendor might have a 'specialty' item. Rasheda sells such an item in the vanilla game. As long as they weren't too powerful.
I've always liked the outdoor dining areas I've seen in the screenies for the Better Cities mod. Outside the Feed Bag, for instance. I hope you will consider doing something of that nature for folks who can't use the Better Cities mod, or who don't want to for some reason.
Oh, one more thing: 'Spell Teacher' might be a better name than 'Spell Learner'. Just sayin'.
Yes, I know I'm suggesting you heap piles more work on your head. Please feel very free to ignore my suggestions entirely, but I hope you are able to make some use of them, and thanks for the work you've put in so far.
Well, try to, at least!
Also, adding a few items and merchandise to vendors wouldn't harm the game, since placing vanilla items generally is level-based.
Mod items, would always appear though
And, doing something similar to Better Cities is a good idea, too, I think I'll take a look into that.
EDIT: The smithy idea to craft weapons for you would generally be similar to that of Imperial Dragon Armor. I suppose I could make a similar script for X amount of time and have the item appear waiting for you in the shop!
I for one use better cities and would hate to have to choose between these mods.
I was just wondering more about the robbing portion of this mod. So, even if you rob the place undetected, the shopkeeper will still be aggressive at you?
Just a question, because I like the idea of robbing stores and getting away with it perfectly.
All the best.
-ECW
Alternatively, you can speak to the NPC, select a Rob dialogue option, and they'll either submit to you and give up their money or exit dialogue immediately and enable aggro, based off their disposition. If they dislike you, they're highly more inclined to try to kill you. If they seem to like you, then they have a higher chance of giving up and calling the guards. (Robbing them WILL set their disp to 0 after the rob is over.)
Sorry for not updating much, but ah, sorta been busy and forgot about modding this here
Merchant resizing - I've resized and edited the merchant's skill to match their race, spell lists, and body size. Body size I have determined by job, age, and skill levels. For example, Rohassan I have made bigger, since she is a smith, and rather than making her a mage, she uses a fine steel claymore, rather than that rusty bucket of a sword.
Lots of more shop content - Added many more weapons into The Fighting Chance, and other shops. The categories of the weapons are judged by what shop it is. I've made it seem more organized, as if it were "on display". I mean, I keep finding Middle Class items within the IC Market. Like HareDeLune said, this is the damned IC Market, not Bravil. High-class items. I hate how just the castles have high class items. Really, merchants in the MAIN go-to place to shop at should be fairly rich, don't you think?
Less window lighting - Bethesda was so lazy to create actual window light that they just added cavelight to the windows. Seriously, Bethesda? It's actually CaveBlue100. AKA, ugly ass lighting, colored terribly, and makes the room lighting seem really crappy. I've added many more candles and hanging lanterns to fill up the room with some light.
Dining areas - Dining areas added for some shops, they may include a small table with some meat and corn, or perhaps a large table to fit a family of two or three. These serve for either you or the shopkeepers, but do know that the items on the plate aren't yours.
More darker wood - I left out some areas with the dark wood because I felt like it might've overdone it, but I decided, nah, it looks damn good. I have left out a few parts like in Mystic Emporium, there are two counter tops that are regular, but a counter top that's rounded in the center of them polished. (Adding the small little details)
Detailed candles - The candles are bland as hell, and always look the same. I've fixed this, by creating different shades of the candles. Some are very pure white, some are dark brown, some are burnt yellow. You'll see this variation in some stores.
Robbing (Highly Alpha, Still Scripting) - You can now rob stores. You can pick the lock on their store merchandise chest, and steal SOME (not all for the sake of you not being able to steal everything every 72 hrs and then just sell it at a fence or some crap.) of their goods. Soon, upon breaking in, the merchant will automatically become aggressive and outright hate you. Their disposition will immediately drop to 0 and their aggressiveness will increase, likely resulting in an attack. Breaking automatically adds a bounty of 1250, (Not scripted yet, as I have said, extremely alpha stage)and guards will pursue you. (Note that with certain mods like Guard Overhaul will only apply that bounty to the specific city, as stated in their mod.)
More to come, enjoy the release!
eeks Smithing Mod by eek
http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/14725/?
I was a bit mad at it at first because of the whole "Orb of Knowledge" thing, but since that has been fixed I'm enjoying the new textures and all!
Kudos!
-ECW
Yeah, sorry about the Orb of Knowledge. I scripted it wrong and was trying to get an area effect out of an orb floating in one of the mage shops.
-ECW
I'll have it up the second they fix the "files" button.
-Tyler
EDIT: Fixed, download 1.1