Markarth Arena, a mod that may never happen Options

[ghastley]

When I discovered over the long weekend that there were some unused voice files for the Windhelm Pit, I started making another mod to place an arena in Markarth. The reasons for Markarth are first that it's relatively easy to add another door to a piece of cliff as an entrance, and the whole thing can be underground, and second that the Dwemer architecture suits making one.

So I have three new interior cells, all of which need cluttering, and better lighting, but are nav-meshed and usable: Entrance leading to a Dwemer Lift; Main Arena with bar and betting booths; Quarters for gladiatrices and other staff.

There's a set of eye-candy gladiatrices to stage entertainment matches. Each has the same sword and shield and a race-appropriate set of "armor", which is actually zero-defence clothing. The swords do less damage than a wooden child's sword to compensate, and they're all essential, with the bout to end when one takes a knee. Armor is similar to that used by Freija in my Oblivion mod: a Manica on sword arm only, Boots and Gauntlets. The boots are asymmetric in many cases, with leg plates on the left (leading) leg. Open-faced helmets are used when available, or heads are bare. I'm working on converting the missing helmets to open-faced, but could live without a complete set.

So far: Altmer in Elven; Breton in Blades; Bosmer in Leather; Dunmer in Bonemold; Dremora in Daedric; Imperial in Imperial Steel; Nord in Nordic Carved; Orc in Orcish, Redguard in Steel Plate. I haven't included Khajiit or Argonian, as they don't show any skin, and that's the whole point of these matches.

Next up are scripts for the staged matches between the women, and attempt to convert that to a player option to fight an essential opponent with equal equipment and skills, as I did in the Oblivion quest. You win by forcing the opponent to a knee as with the brawls, but this time you'll have weapons. Shouts and spells disabled, probably, as that could be hard to explain/balance if the arena opponent uses them.

After that, it's Player/NPC versus creature(s). Those will be harder to balance properly, which is why I'm doing the others first. The betting mechanism should be easy enough for all the matches.

The left-over voice files may prove not to be enough, and it may never happen, but I'm having fun seeing how far I can get. I can use a fair amount of generic bar dialogue as well as the cut stuff.

[Grits]

Great idea, ghastley! I love the idea that no one in the gladiator matches has to die.

For making the equipment somewhat even between the player and the opponent in the gladiator matches, could you use a mechanism like in Oblivion where you couldn’t compete unless you were wearing your raiment?

I’m not sure which mod does it, but in my games if a player uses a Shout or spell (including healing) the brawl is over and I think the NPC goes hostile. Would something like that work instead of disabling Shouts and spells?