Virtual Space
Assignment 2
Concept Proposal
Jacques Corby-Tuech

Proposal concept for an interactive game environment.

My proposal for the assignment is to create an interactive experience within a video game using either an external engine or a game’s modding tools. We looked at the Unity engine at college, which I thought was incredibly interesting. It was full of features but involves a great deal of scripting to create anything that resembles a game.

I then looked at the UDK (Unreal Development Kit) which recently became available to use freely. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of software, but far too complicated for my needs at this moment in time. I then looked at various games that could be easily and quickly modded. These included Valve’s Source engine, which has very powerful mod tools, but again, it looks too complicated. I then looked at the Morrowind and the Oblivion engines. At first glances, both are very similar, they both come with an incredible powerful tool called The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which would allow me to add simple scripts and add my own game artefacts, while still being able to keep the existing game code and libraries. I’ve experimented with all of these engines and the Morrowind Construction Set is by far the easiest to use, while still maintaining the ability to create complex artefacts.

Because of this, I’ve decided to use the Morrowind Construction Set. Because what I’m creating is going to be a mod, and not a full experience, it needs to fit within the scope of the existing game. Within Morrowind, there are three joinable Great Houses, each of which has an incredibly distinct visual and architectural style.

House Hlaalu live within relatively modest looking houses with multiple stories.

House Redoran live within houses shaped like the insects that inhabit the continent of Vvardenfell, their headquarters are built within the hollowed out shell of a giant crab.

House Telvanni are again stranger, their houses and strongholds are built within giant mushrooms, grown from the earth, often using existing Imperial architecture as a central point to grow their own housing.

These architectural styles are a central point to the game, and it’s largely because of them that Morrowind is so fondly remembered.

Because of these reasons, I think it would be interesting to create my own town or stronghold within the game, keeping the architectural style of House Telvanni, whose giant mushroom and crystal buildings allow for a truly interesting space.

Another important feature of Telvanni buildings is that they are incredibly difficult to navigate, requiring player characters to be able to levitate to reach certain areas, with deep pits and wells throughout the structure that the player can navigate through. This serves to make the space more interesting, making it almost labyrinthine, and making the space an interactive environment the player can get lost and engage with.

Another way to make the space more interesting will be to add characters, and artefacts that create an ambiance within the game. They should of course, still keep to the same style as that already established within the game, so that immersion is not broken, while providing dialogue and an interactive environment. A way to achieve this would be to make this environment an abandoned stronghold, overtaken by the central enemies within the game, the objective would then be to recover the area, while discovering what it’s fate was.

With this in mind, I set about creating a chart to detail the questline that would bring the player character to the central stronghold.

• Speak to character X to hear about abandoned stronghold, told to go see person Y to gain more information.
• Find person Y, get detailed information about stronghold, including location.
• Find the stronghold, kill enemies, find out what happened.
• Go back to character X to tell them of your success.

This is relatively simple, and there is plenty of room for improvement, at the moment, with the quest as it stands, the potential story is incredibly dull, and not very engaging. To make it more interesting, we need to make more things happen. The stronghold falling as a result of betrayal would be one way to achieve that, with the end of the quest consisting of finding and killing the perpetrator. Another way to make it more interesting would be to allow the player to reclaim the stronghold for their own, requiring vast quantities of money and certain resources. This would then allow further expansion by adding retainers once the quest is completed.

With this in mind, the new quest progression would look like this.

• Speak to character X, who tells you about abandoned stronghold, and who tells you to speak to character Y to find more information.
• Find and speak to character Y, who will provide the location of the stronghold.
• Go to the stronghold and defeat enemies, main enemy will be carrying a piece of information which relates to the stronghold downfall.
• Go back to character Y, who will read the information and tell you to deal with the traitor within the house.
• Find and deal with the traitor.
• Go back to character Y who will tell you that now the stronghold is cleared, it can be reclaimed, though resources will be needed.
• Give required resources to character Y.
• Have new stronghold.

In this manner, we’ve now created a new quest which has a lot more depth, and more reward for the player.

More importantly though, there is now a direct reason and benefit for exploring the space, which otherwise may have remained unexplored if there had been no reason to go there.