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.

[ghastley]

Question that's partly independent of this mod:

Many of the races have a clear "style" for furnishing their homes. There's Orcish stuff labelled as such in the CK, so they're the easiest. The more carved items are appropriate for the Nords, especially if they have the dragon head motif. Redguard can be brass and rugs, even on the walls. Bosmer would be no wood / lots of furs and hides. The Dunmer have various things from Solstheim, as I'm already Dragonborn-dependent.

Less clear are Breton, for which I can substitute Dwemer, as this is Markarth, and Imperial, which will just be Noble stuff (where not too Nordic).

What to use for Altmer? The only specifically Elven items I've found are weapons and armour. I have similar problems for Dremora, but that's expected. I may have to retexture some things for them.

Edit: I found the Ancient Elven furniture for Oblivion and adapted a few items for Skyrim. So they look OK.

The Dremora have beds that combine the Dwemer stone base with the claws of Apocrypha altars. I just need some chairs and lamps for their room. I can probably take a plain chair and add curved spikes to it, and just retexture a Dwemer table.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Dec 8 2015, 04:24 PM