Please use this thread to discuss topics that involve heavy amounts of spoilers about the projects. Please keep spoilers OUT of the other threads and general discussion. If you have a question about a specific story event, or wish to review or post comments on a specific section that you cannot do without spoiling part of the mod, post it here.
I just tried this mod and loved it at first, but the story completely kills it. The world map is decent, the dungeons and music is AMAZING, but whoever wrote the story completely ruins it. I did this mod at level 81, so when I did the quest where you go to the library, it was really hard, which was a good thing. I had a feeling of accomplishment...Then the rescue mission happened, and all that work felt like it was for nothing...I hate stories that make characters do things uncharacteristically, simply to keep the story going. The fact that he gives up the keys makes zero sense. You can say "He wanted to protect his family", and that would make sense, except the fact that him, his wife, and a three other guys just killed something like 50 of the villain's men. "But those were just bandits, not his soldiers", that would make sense except whoever scripted it made the bandits tougher than his soldiers. This mod started out strong, but soiled the bed in a major way towards the end. I literally stood back and just watched the final battle without participating. That final battle consisted of like 20 of agnar's men taking on 2 of the villain's men at any given moment. Not a single soldier of Agnar's died in the final battle, so why is the traveler even needed? In short, due to the ending I'll grade it a C, because the mass battles and aesthetic appeal were both really fun. Ultimately though, I'd only suggest playing this mod with an xbox controller in a homemade submarine.
Played this mod for the first time, this year, and I loved it. I share most of the same concerns as everyone else- the villain had way too many scripted escapes, and I'm incredibly disappointed that there's only one real settlement on the entire island- but I think this mod is much more positive than negative. I really enjoyed the wide open spaces, it's a big change of pace from the rest of Skyrim, and I found it very relaxing to explore. I got a lot of Dragon's Dogma vibes from it. I loved the design of everything, definitely one of the most uniquely crafted new lands mods, despite it primarily reusing assets. The large stones dotting the land really get my theorist senses tingling. I desperately hope that this mod will get future updates. Rebuilt cities are an absolute must, and how about the northern region? I have my suspicions it's actually Atmora, and I can't wait to find out more! But it's been years, and I'm sadly wondering if it ever will receive an update. It deserves one.
So i just finished my playthrough of this mod and first off i will say it works. The land design is strange but what ever. The whole thing clearly has a lot of thought put into it. My biggest gripe with this is the times when im forced to sit and listen to the guy with the anvil on his shoulder stand there and talk and leaving me to do nothing. At one point im forced to listen to this guy and he asks for the keys to ensure someones safety. My character which has had less that good intentions has two keys on their person and im forced to give them up? My response would be to hell with your family he will kill us anyways, It was at that point this mod took a nose dive.
The fact that i couldn't shout mr.anvil off the cliff during his monologue at the end or run past his guards during the dual and take the heart for my self is really what i didn't like about this ( an invisible wall, really?). The ending when he just gets killed by a dragon seems kind of lazy to me. This mod is way to "good guy do no wrong" for me. At the half way point i just wanted to kill everything and burn the rest to the ground.
Honestly i would enjoy this mod so much more if it had an evil path.
just a few thoughts on the mod. the mod was pretty good it could do with more cities(which don't get destroyed) and more quests. it doesn't NEED them but it could use them.
the rumors lead to quests but don't give markers or quests so when I hear "*name* has lost cows" my reaction is okkkkaay i want a quest idgaf about cows! not realizing if i find *name* he will have a quest.
the main story line was terrible. it has the dreaded "you have to have these idiot npcs come with you and you can't control them" quests from the companions. I play as an archer and the NPCs did nothing but rush me so i couldn't be careful and get all the loot and couldn't sneak and they blocked almost every shot. I died several times at Lvl 50 because the npcs were so in the way.
the game likes to have lots of scenes where it forces you to do nothing from the perspective of a legendary hero that annoying. several times I wanted to shout HELLO DRAGON BORN HERE I GOT DIS s#*!! when you were forced to abandon borvald I really wish I had gotten to defend it instead. the sacrifice of the jarl and his housecarl felt unneeded and wasteful
when the bad jarl is threatening the "good jarl" its obvious he is going to kill all of us if he can giving him they keys is pointless. it would make 100* more sense for amber creek to be attacked while you're getting the book than to have a few soldiers threaten the jarl of amber hold out of the keys and then have me kill the guards he threatened us with just like I knew I could when he was delivering the threat
the badguy is killed by a dragon randomly at the end (no feeling of victory for what should have been a cataclysmic final battle between the traveler and the bad jarl ) and you don't get to keep the heart of the gods. ok fine. I guess that's ok the heart would be a bit op for me to have (or so I tell myself despite my disappointment) you can't even use the heart to restore the cities
then there is a no marker quest to search for crystals (the only quest I can compare it to is the atherium forge questline) for a daedric artifact. surely I'll be allowed to keep the daedric artifact right?! WRONG! you get nothing.
later on I get a unique weapon which makes healing magic useless on a nothing quest to get some fabric from a bandit which is a better reward than I got from both the main questline and the daedric crystal questline.
I don't want to be someone who just complains and doesn't make any constructive advice so here is some advice. instead of blowing up the city I should defend it whiterun style from the siege. despite our efforts a single enemy gets by and steals the key. the city is not destroyed. is home to numerous npc's and side quests. the quests where npc's come with you should be removed and you instead do them solo. the bad guy already knows where to find the heart chamber and steals the key while you're looking for the book(called the heart chamber). you go to the heart chamber to look for it and find he has already gained the power of the heart and you have a boss battle against a leveld enemy with strange powers.you get the heart use it to fix the city (both cities if the other siege happened still) then either you get to keep the heart of the gods (maybe it can be crafted into a necklace where it will give you a boost to health regen mana regen and stamina regen) or it could be a soul gem (like Azura's star) or it could give you a buff like the strange gem crown.
when you get the crystal you should be part of an amulet or something which enables you to travel to a plane of oblivion where there are more quests and should have some sort of interesting enchantment. (imo it would make sense to periodically release a wave of fear or insanity when in combat)
tl;dr the questline is anyoing af right now because none of the "grand quests" have good rewards or satisfying conclusions.
So, I finally finished this mod. I started with a fairly low-level pure mage character, I think I entered the first cave around level 9. Not much to add that hasn't already been said, but I do still have a few thoughts to share:
The mod still holds up in 2016, as I had a lot of fun with it.
A low-level pure mage is viable, the difficulty scales well and still has the same bumps and grinds others are describing in the comments here, presumably using much higher-level melee-based characters.
The fights were outstanding, I really enjoyed the challenge of the big battles, and the layout of the areas allowed me to try out some crowd control spells that I don't often get a chance to use in the vanilla game. I made several save points before each one so I can go back to those save games and replay those scenes again.
The mod author is clearly neither claustrophobic not agoraphobic, as there is no shortage of both tight passageways and sprawling, wide-open spaces.
If anyone wants to make a mod for the vanilla game that adds voiced lines to Brynjolf in the Thieves Guild, they need to contact the voice actor for Brother Thorlogh because the dude is a dead ringer.
The voice actors for the children in Falskaar deserve special mention, they sounded exactly like the kids in Fallout 3 / NV or any other professionally voiced game.
Contrary to what some others have said, I rather enjoyed the feeling of being a sidekick during some parts of the quest. It's a bit ridiculous that you always become the CEO of whatever organization you join in TES games. For all the complaints about the ending, I was relieved that I wasn't made a thane or worse, the new Jarl.
That said, I do have a few complaints:
There is apparently no one in Falskaar who sells spell books. I kept hearing talk about court wizards but I couldn't find a single one. Thankfully, there is a point in the main story where the Jarl basically tells you to pack off back to Skyrim and get some supplies.
With all the voice acting already provided, it would have been nice to have a follower or at least a hireling of some sort. Some of those battles where you have to fight solo were a little too tough!
It's been said already, but man, Jarl Angar isn't very good at his job. For all his platitudes about leadership and honor, he made some really bone-head decisions that hurt a lot of people. If I was invited to participate in a moot in Falskaar, I'd cast my lot for someone else. Like maybe one of the kids. It's not like they could do much worse.
No rewards! "I saved Falskaar and I didn't even get a lousy T-shirt." Well, okay, there was that one outfit you get from Svea. I thought I was at least going to get the chance to steal that daedric crystal and keep it for myself, but nooooo. Even Clavicus Vile wouldn't leave someone high and dry like that.
so was the northern part of the mod ever finished? last time i played falskaar was a year ago. i remember it saying the nords in the mountains or something distanced themselves or something...
I'll try to keep it short; I love almost everything about this mod and my mod list will probably never let go of it. Respect and many thanks to the author.
And here is the other 3,107% of it which I don't like: - The main city is useless. I can't believe the author went through the trouble of creating an actual city on a hill just to make it a 10 minute part of the game. Why the player can't be allowed to enter it pre-destruction? A city created just so you can look at it from a distance and have a linear walk trough it...? I was heavily disapointed with this, especially cause all what's left of such a huge land is just one town, with everything grand being sealed off.. - Agnar I really can't stand this dude, he looks as petty as a bandit the first time you see him and the way he talks brings him into the same boat with Cicero! That is my opinion of course, in fact I've read positive things about his voice. And just to add - the guard npc you meet right after telleporting to Falskaar has one of, if not, the best voice I've ever heard in Skyrim.
So these are my two picks that don't make this mod perfect, in my mind.
Hopefully it will be updated in the future, as from what we see, it practically asks for more things to add.
I agree with you about the main city. It looked so cool and then was useless. Really would have liked if it was rebuilt later and filled with generic NPC to at least provide some services. Also, would have been cool if it was built with custom assets which can be found here on the nexus. Still though, it would be a cool project to fix it.
Just a question about Dragonbone Perch. I've been able to play Falskaar for the most part "on my own"--a couple issues with NPCs in the wrong places notwithstanding. Dozens of bounty letters from the jarl have not sent me to this location, and if Dragonbone Perch is a quest-related location I haven't been able to find the quest after quite a bit of play. (I only became aware of it because there was a single dragon shout I hadn't found during a long playthrough...)
Is this a location you find while traipsing around the countryside, or is it quest related? And if the latter may I ask which quest (and where it starts)?
A review - of the MOD - Falskaar. My first play through:
I enjoyed the MOD - and endorsed it, with no issues: First time playing the Mod.
But some things did not " work " for me:
IE: 10,000 Septims for the home. That just did not fit at all, based on the prices of the other Vanilla Homes in Skyrim and this is not a " port of call " where property is in HIGH DEMAND. I could easily see it 5,000 Septims .. would be a very fair and reasonable price tag.
Also as my other post stated, it would have been NICE if the buying the home was made a lot clearer as to what the player needed to do. Because here I thought I had done what needed to be done, based on VANILLA home game requirements and that was wrong. So a little guidance to the requirements would have been appreciated.
I also found - very annoying, seriously annoying - while the battle for the " Bad " Hold ( forget the name right now ) The other " good guys " got into my line of fire .. I had clear sword ' shot ' and a " good guy " ran right in front of me and then Brother T - > kept asking me for 40 Septims for " Breaking the law " - they turned RED and were attacking me, until I sheathed my sword and paid the fine right in the middle of a battle. I went -- seriously, are you kidding me??? It cost me about 450 Septims by battles end. > .. <I almost died a couple of times, because I had to sheath my sword while enemies were attacking me as well as Brother T attacking me - until I paid the fine. This is MOD SPECIFIC as I have never encountered this with any other battles in Skyrim Vanilla or Mod games.
I wish the Quest Locations were MARKED WITH THEIR RELATED QUEST .. as the " explorer in me " wants to explore and found some were " Dead Ends " because they were locked due to QUEST NOT ACTIVE. < - thus a QUEST NOTE would have been greatly appreciated. Just a little touch that would let the player know - DO NOT GO IN HERE UNTIL QUEST IS ACTIVE.
I have to be honest -I did not like the " Fallout " style ending. It was a ' total major let down ' .. because obviously the Dragon was going to take the Jarl anyways - so the fight - battles .. especially the Big Bad Jarl challenging me .. were well totally empty & meaningless. I was actually looking to take the Jarl Down, 2/b honest. Then we fight the remaining guards and the Jarl Agnar takes the Heart of the Gods and puts it back. You built us UP - and sorry to be only ' let down'.
I got a suppose " MAP UPDATE " as part of my " reward " and found that nothing was updated??
There was nothing new on my map that was revealed or ' new '.?? Was there suppose to be?? I guess, if you did not expect the player to be an explorer ... but I know a lot of us. Hey we have a whole new land to explore and so we do!!! Especially while doing other Quest - we get these map highlights that we are close to a new place .. yes we are going to explore and do. So unless there was something very specific and I missed it ....?
Also the " Creep Factor " - First let me say - GREAT VOICE ACTING. I mean that - excellent job by the actors. They gave out very good emotional tones in their lines and that was GREAT.
But to have a young - very young male voice coming out of an " older Elf Male " was ' creepy ' to be honest. ( Finding his birth records, NPC. )
The gal in the Store - Here you have a very attractive Nord Female with an Oriental Voice. I had a couple of friends listen to the voice and they all agreed, it was Oriental in tone.
Then you had this very young girl - pre-adolescent age with the voice of 20 something voice coming out of her.
Then you had the same with a young boy, with the voice of a much older male ( 20 Something ) coming out of him.
Bottom Line - Great Mod except for the ENDING .. that was in all honesty - a serious LET DOWN. Because you all but told us - The Dragon Ending was the ' planned ending ' and thus made a lot of the Quest Build Up .. and you did a good job building us up .... to going, " HUH?? That's it?? "
Added - I went to Hjongunnar Manor. It was not ' updated ' as a reward on my map - I had to physically go there to get it ID on the map.
So I still ( as a side comment ) have to ask - WHAT WAS THE REWARD WITH THE MAP BEING UPDATED? Seriously I have seen NO CHANGE.
So why wasn't the Manor given as a reward, with purchase rights and such?
Especially since it is clear it was a bunch of Bandits that were there. That would have been at least one good ending to this story - The Traveler got the Manor.
I was looking forward to soul trapping Jarl Fetcher as well and tearing his little gang apart, just being in a forced monologue that long made it obvious in a cliche way that the villian just did himself in - the only good point I can say to the suicidal tendencies of the NPC allies is it's a good way to train in restoration magic, just rememebr to pick up healing hands or something to that effect before going to echo deep and reap the rewards in leveling.
Spoiler Heavy Discussion (153 comments)
The fact that i couldn't shout mr.anvil off the cliff during his monologue at the end or run past his guards during the dual and take the heart for my self is really what i didn't like about this ( an invisible wall, really?). The ending when he just gets killed by a dragon seems kind of lazy to me. This mod is way to "good guy do no wrong" for me. At the half way point i just wanted to kill everything and burn the rest to the ground.
Honestly i would enjoy this mod so much more if it had an evil path.
the rumors lead to quests but don't give markers or quests so when I hear "*name* has lost cows" my reaction is okkkkaay i want a quest idgaf about cows! not realizing if i find *name* he will have a quest.
the main story line was terrible. it has the dreaded "you have to have these idiot npcs come with you and you can't control them" quests from the companions. I play as an archer and the NPCs did nothing but rush me so i couldn't be careful and get all the loot and couldn't sneak and they blocked almost every shot. I died several times at Lvl 50 because the npcs were so in the way.
the game likes to have lots of scenes where it forces you to do nothing from the perspective of a legendary hero that annoying. several times I wanted to shout HELLO DRAGON BORN HERE I GOT DIS s#*!! when you were forced to abandon borvald I really wish I had gotten to defend it instead. the sacrifice of the jarl and his housecarl felt unneeded and wasteful
when the bad jarl is threatening the "good jarl" its obvious he is going to kill all of us if he can giving him they keys is pointless. it would make 100* more sense for amber creek to be attacked while you're getting the book than to have a few soldiers threaten the jarl of amber hold out of the keys and then have me kill the guards he threatened us with just like I knew I could when he was delivering the threat
the badguy is killed by a dragon randomly at the end (no feeling of victory for what should have been a cataclysmic final battle between the traveler and the bad jarl ) and you don't get to keep the heart of the gods. ok fine. I guess that's ok the heart would be a bit op for me to have (or so I tell myself despite my disappointment) you can't even use the heart to restore the cities
then there is a no marker quest to search for crystals (the only quest I can compare it to is the atherium forge questline) for a daedric artifact. surely I'll be allowed to keep the daedric artifact right?! WRONG! you get nothing.
later on I get a unique weapon which makes healing magic useless on a nothing quest to get some fabric from a bandit which is a better reward than I got from both the main questline and the daedric crystal questline.
I don't want to be someone who just complains and doesn't make any constructive advice so here is some advice. instead of blowing up the city I should defend it whiterun style from the siege. despite our efforts a single enemy gets by and steals the key. the city is not destroyed. is home to numerous npc's and side quests. the quests where npc's come with you should be removed and you instead do them solo. the bad guy already knows where to find the heart chamber and steals the key while you're looking for the book(called the heart chamber). you go to the heart chamber to look for it and find he has already gained the power of the heart and you have a boss battle against a leveld enemy with strange powers.you get the heart use it to fix the city (both cities if the other siege happened still) then either you get to keep the heart of the gods (maybe it can be crafted into a necklace where it will give you a boost to health regen mana regen and stamina regen) or it could be a soul gem (like Azura's star) or it could give you a buff like the strange gem crown.
when you get the crystal you should be part of an amulet or something which enables you to travel to a plane of oblivion where there are more quests and should have some sort of interesting enchantment. (imo it would make sense to periodically release a wave of fear or insanity when in combat)
tl;dr the questline is anyoing af right now because none of the "grand quests" have good rewards or satisfying conclusions.
- The mod still holds up in 2016, as I had a lot of fun with it.
- A low-level pure mage is viable, the difficulty scales well and still has the same bumps and grinds others are describing in the comments here, presumably using much higher-level melee-based characters.
- The fights were outstanding, I really enjoyed the challenge of the big battles, and the layout of the areas allowed me to try out some crowd control spells that I don't often get a chance to use in the vanilla game. I made several save points before each one so I can go back to those save games and replay those scenes again.
- The mod author is clearly neither claustrophobic not agoraphobic, as there is no shortage of both tight passageways and sprawling, wide-open spaces.
- If anyone wants to make a mod for the vanilla game that adds voiced lines to Brynjolf in the Thieves Guild, they need to contact the voice actor for Brother Thorlogh because the dude is a dead ringer.
- The voice actors for the children in Falskaar deserve special mention, they sounded exactly like the kids in Fallout 3 / NV or any other professionally voiced game.
- Contrary to what some others have said, I rather enjoyed the feeling of being a sidekick during some parts of the quest. It's a bit ridiculous that you always become the CEO of whatever organization you join in TES games. For all the complaints about the ending, I was relieved that I wasn't made a thane or worse, the new Jarl.
That said, I do have a few complaints:And here is the other 3,107% of it which I don't like:
- The main city is useless.
I can't believe the author went through the trouble of creating an actual city on a hill just to make it a 10 minute part of the game. Why the player can't be allowed to enter it pre-destruction? A city created just so you can look at it from a distance and have a linear walk trough it...? I was heavily disapointed with this, especially cause all what's left of such a huge land is just one town, with everything grand being sealed off..
- Agnar
I really can't stand this dude, he looks as petty as a bandit the first time you see him and the way he talks brings him into the same boat with Cicero! That is my opinion of course, in fact I've read positive things about his voice. And just to add - the guard npc you meet right after telleporting to Falskaar has one of, if not, the best voice I've ever heard in Skyrim.
So these are my two picks that don't make this mod perfect, in my mind.
Hopefully it will be updated in the future, as from what we see, it practically asks for more things to add.
Is this a location you find while traipsing around the countryside, or is it quest related? And if the latter may I ask which quest (and where it starts)?
Thanks very much!
I enjoyed the MOD - and endorsed it, with no issues: First time playing the Mod.
But some things did not " work " for me:
IE: 10,000 Septims for the home. That just did not fit at all, based on the prices of the other Vanilla Homes in Skyrim and this is not a " port of call " where property is in HIGH DEMAND. I could easily see it 5,000 Septims .. would be a very fair and reasonable price tag.
Also as my other post stated, it would have been NICE if the buying the home was made a lot clearer as to what the player needed to do. Because here I thought I had done what needed to be done, based on VANILLA home game requirements and that was wrong. So a little guidance to the requirements would have been appreciated.
I also found - very annoying, seriously annoying - while the battle for the " Bad " Hold ( forget the name right now ) The other " good guys " got into my line of fire .. I had clear sword ' shot ' and a " good guy " ran right in front of me and then Brother T - > kept asking me for 40 Septims for " Breaking the law " - they turned RED and were attacking me, until I sheathed my sword and paid the fine right in the middle of a battle. I went -- seriously, are you kidding me??? It cost me about 450 Septims by battles end. > .. <I almost died a couple of times, because I had to sheath my sword while enemies were attacking me as well as Brother T attacking me - until I paid the fine. This is MOD SPECIFIC as I have never encountered this with any other battles in Skyrim Vanilla or Mod games.
I wish the Quest Locations were MARKED WITH THEIR RELATED QUEST .. as the " explorer in me " wants to explore and found some were " Dead Ends " because they were locked due to QUEST NOT ACTIVE. < - thus a QUEST NOTE would have been greatly appreciated. Just a little touch that would let the player know - DO NOT GO IN HERE UNTIL QUEST IS ACTIVE.
I have to be honest -I did not like the " Fallout " style ending. It was a ' total major let down ' .. because obviously the Dragon was going to take the Jarl anyways - so the fight - battles .. especially the Big Bad Jarl challenging me .. were well totally empty & meaningless. I was actually looking to take the Jarl Down, 2/b honest. Then we fight the remaining guards and the Jarl Agnar takes the Heart of the Gods and puts it back. You built us UP - and sorry to be only ' let down'.
I got a suppose " MAP UPDATE " as part of my " reward " and found that nothing was updated??
There was nothing new on my map that was revealed or ' new '.?? Was there suppose to be?? I guess, if you did not expect the player to be an explorer ... but I know a lot of us. Hey we have a whole new land to explore and so we do!!! Especially while doing other Quest - we get these map highlights that we are close to a new place .. yes we are going to explore and do. So unless there was something very specific and I missed it ....?
Also the " Creep Factor " - First let me say - GREAT VOICE ACTING. I mean that - excellent job by the actors. They gave out very good emotional tones in their lines and that was GREAT.
But to have a young - very young male voice coming out of an " older Elf Male " was ' creepy ' to be honest. ( Finding his birth records, NPC. )
The gal in the Store - Here you have a very attractive Nord Female with an Oriental Voice. I had a couple of friends listen to the voice and they all agreed, it was Oriental in tone.
Then you had this very young girl - pre-adolescent age with the voice of 20 something voice coming out of her.
Then you had the same with a young boy, with the voice of a much older male ( 20 Something ) coming out of him.
Bottom Line - Great Mod except for the ENDING .. that was in all honesty - a serious LET DOWN. Because you all but told us - The Dragon Ending was the ' planned ending ' and thus made a lot of the Quest Build Up .. and you did a good job building us up .... to going, " HUH?? That's it?? "
So I still ( as a side comment ) have to ask - WHAT WAS THE REWARD WITH THE MAP BEING UPDATED? Seriously I have seen NO CHANGE.
So why wasn't the Manor given as a reward, with purchase rights and such?
Especially since it is clear it was a bunch of Bandits that were there. That would have been at least one good ending to this story - The Traveler got the Manor.