Enderal: Shards Of Order - Interior Samples

The SureAI Team released two new screenshots for Enderal: Shards Of Order. I can't wait to play the the final build of the mod hopefully sometime early next year.

Two brand-new samples from Enderals interior-design.

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More information.

never played a mod for sky. is one so specialy well written and scripted that deserves it?

i mean, to at least match a F3 standard?

even if there is, ill probably just watch it on youtube ))

Nehrim was incredibly well designed. It had a horrible story but the exploration and gameplay were very well done. The problem with this game is that Skyrim has been out for 3 years already and played to death. I'm not sure folks are going to go through the hassle of reinstallation just to play a custom-built mod. The voice acting, at least in English, was atrocious as well. I'm not sure how much a free mod can improve this though.

I got bogged down in the Werewolf-Vampire conflict and quit Skyrim. I might give it another try with this and avoid getting sucked into that crap again.

Yes, the first two times I played it I learned what to avoid in order to have a more satisfactory playing experience. I can always go back and do the parts I skipped later.

I'll be honest, playing the quest lines in Skyrim isn't all that interesting. Skyrim is at its most fun when you just wander and make up your own role. From DArtagnan's writing, it sounds like Bethesda needs to steal the writers from the MMO when it comes to the next TES game.

crpgnut said:

I'll be honest, playing the quest lines in Skyrim isn't all that interesting. Skyrim is at its most fun when you just wander and make up your own role. From DArtagnan's writing, it sounds like Bethesda needs to steal the writers from the MMO when it comes to the next TES game.

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The writing in ESO isn't what I would consider great, it's just very good by MMO standards.

MMO standards are even lower than singleplayer RPG standards

What I like about ESO writing is that it's very faithful to TES lore, and they've gone to great lengths to make all the quests relevant to the story of whatever area you're in. Nothing is incidental and you're not doing completely stupid "cute" stuff like in WoW og GW2, like chasing toy bunnies or puffing rainbow smoke out of mob asses or whatever.

So, it's my kind of lore.

I found the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines interesting in Skyrim, but the main storyline wasn't very good. I never really got into the other guilds.

Overall, though, I found Skyrim writing to be decent and reasonably compelling - certainly enough for me to enjoy my time exploring.

I find that the best part of Skyrim writing is found in all those little notes and journals you find as you explore dungeons on a whim. Quite a lot of them have these little stories about what happened and who lived there.

That's enough for me, and I don't really need a strong narrative when the gameplay is clearly about exploration and realising my character

I agree totally. Skyrim's main quests were kinda meh, not bad not good. I think Enderal might end up being the same. The main quest is going to be meh. However, I loved their level design and that is likely what will motivate me to install Skyrim again when it comes out. I'm just not sure that there will be a huge audience willing to do this, but that probably isn't their goal. I believe I read they were hoping to be picked up, either individually or en masse by a publisher/software house.

The side quests in Skyrim and most of the "non-dialog" writing is very good.

Hello everyone!

First of all, thanks for re-posting our news here.

I'm from SureAI, and I am mainly responsible for the writing, the scripting, and a large potion of the management part - Which is more than most people expect, given the size of our project.

"I think Enderal might end up being the same. The main quest is going to be meh. "

I'd like to comment on that bit. Actually we are investing a lot of time in Enderals storyline, especially the Mainquest. It is always hard to judge your own work, but I think we suceeded in creating a rather unconventional, mature and complex plot tackling some interesting themes. So far the feedback we got from two major German gaming magazines (Gamestar and PCAction), who were given a demo version containing a fully-voiced and polished vertical slice of the game that included a 3-hour long quest, was quite good. They particularily praised the writing and the mission design:

"[…] The narrative in Enderal avoids clichéd black-and-white writing. In the given quest, we experienced several enthralling, emotional moments and a twist, that left us with an uneasy, pensive feeling. […]"

We hope that the rest of the game can live up to the expectations, too. So, while we can't make any promises - and since story is a very delicate manner - we still hope the "story-lovers" among you will nonetheless give it a try.

All the best,

Nicolas Samuel (SureAI)

Nicolas - Thank you for the info - sounds very interesting!

Nicolas Samuel said:

Hello everyone!

First of all, thanks for re-posting our news here.

I'm from SureAI, and I am mainly responsible for the writing, the scripting, and a large potion of the management part - Which is more than most people expect, given the size of our project.

"I think Enderal might end up being the same. The main quest is going to be meh. "

I'd like to comment on that bit. Actually we are investing a lot of time in Enderals storyline, especially the Mainquest. It is always hard to judge your own work, but I think we suceeded in creating a rather unconventional, mature and complex plot tackling some interesting themes. So far the feedback we got from two major German gaming magazines (Gamestar and PCAction), who were given a demo version containing a fully-voiced and polished vertical slice of the game that included a 3-hour long quest, was quite good. They particularily praised the writing and the mission design:

"[…] The narrative in Enderal avoids clichéd black-and-white writing. In the given quest, we experienced several enthralling, emotional moments and a twist, that left us pensive. […]"

We hope that the rest of the game can live up to the expectations, too. So, while we can't make any promises - and since story is a very delicate manner - we still hope the "story-lovers" among you will nonetheless give it a try.

All the best,

Nicolas Samuel (SureAI)

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Does magazine review mean that you are ready for release?

Thanks for taking your time to post here and for your work on the mod. Hope the story rocks this time around. I for one am still looking forward to playing this mod.

I do believe the Germans liked the first game much more than native English speakers. The game might have lost most of its meaning during translation. I'd strongly suggest an intro into Enderal that reminds everyone of what happened in Nehrim. Not many will reinstall Oblivion to remind themselves what Nehrim was about. 3D engines age terribly. The only thing I can really remember is that the good guy lost and you had to release and travel with a supposedly god-like asshole. Not a good memory.

I uninstall rarely - I have a 3 TB hard-disc exclusively for my Steam directory...

HiddenX said:

I uninstall rarely - I have a 3 TB hard-disc exclusively for my Steam directory…

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You must be a very rich man to have 3TB SSD

I have no doubts that Enderal is going to be great, story included. The storyline in Nehrim was, IMO, excellent, and even better yet was the super creative stuff that happened once the main story was finished. Honestly, some of the content after the main story ends was some of the best I've experienced in any RPG and that content was even better than some game's main content! I'm sure that Enderal is going to be great as well.

lostforever said:

Does magazine review mean that you are ready for release?

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Not yet, unfortunately. It won't come out before 2015! Hopefully the English VA and translation will advance well, so there won't be a long delay between the German and the English release.

We're working very hard, though. Most of us are actually doing it full-time (or part-time), since we are planning to go commercial after Enderal. A huge undertaking, and certainly one which we don't want to mess up. ;-)

As for the Nehrim-recap in the beginning of Enderal, yes, we'll do that, especially since Enderal's story is based on Nehrims - more or less.

The only thing I can really remember is that the good guy lost and you had to release and travel with a supposedly god-like asshole. Not a good memory.

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Yeah, Narathzul Arantheal was certainly… special. I wasn't involved in the writing of Nehrim myself, but once you reached a certain point in the story, he actually showed a lot of depth. A lot of it was probably lost due to the missing English synchronization, I'm afraid. Martin Sabel (who, by the way, starred in the German version of Dawnguard, and Dragon Age) did a great job there.

Thanks for taking interest in our project!

Time for a Nehrim replay...

Nicolas Samuel said:

Not yet, unfortunately. It won't come out before 2015! Hopefully the English VA and translation will advance well, so there won't be a long delay between the German and the English release.

We're working very hard, though. Most of us are actually doing it full-time (or part-time), since we are planning to go commercial after Enderal. A huge undertaking, and certainly one which we don't want to mess up. ;-)

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Well allow me to say welcome to our small forum, and I must say after reading your reply I'm very excited to see what your first commercial project will be.
Have you guys thought of using crowd-funding? Just a thought.

SureAI and Feline Fuelled Games are the best modders in Germany.

I'm excited to see one of them going into the business fulltime. Good Luck!

Can't say that Nehrim's story was worse than Oblivion's. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it much more. The writing was maybe not stellar, but it certainly beat the cookie-cutter ones of most commercial RPGs nowadays.

Having said that, the exploration/world design was just spectacular and I can't wait to see what Enderal will be like.