ES4: Oblivion - The Terry Pratchett Mod Story

Silver

Silver

Spaceman
Staff Member
Supporter
Joined
February 13, 2014
Messages
9,314
Location
New Zealand
Eurogamer tell the tale behind the Oblivion mod that Terry Practchett worked on.

One of the most important features that was added to Vilja was the lead-the-way function, which Pratchett had specifically requested to help with his Alzheimer's. "By that point Terry was already having serious trouble with his memory," Charles told Eurogamer. "The sort of short-term memory functioning needed to navigate the game world was a particular problem for him."

Charles and Emma worked particularly hard on implementing this function, which enabled Vilja to lead the player out of the dungeon they were in. However, this wasn't an easy task. "Since I knew there was a real need behind that request I kept thinking about it," Charles said. "Eventually, I realised that another Vilja feature moved a special marker around to track when she changed locations. Once I had that insight, combining the two features at the technical level was fairly easy." Once the function was operating properly, Pratchett could simply turn to Vilja and select the "I'm lost!" option whenever he got stuck in a dungeon, which would prompt her to lead the way out.

[...]
Click to expand...
Thanks Farflame!

More information.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
9,314
Location
New Zealand
Nice article. Makes me want to install Oblivion again, just to try out this mod.
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2013
Messages
127
Location
Belgium
Nice and interesting article ... My grandmother also had Alzheimer or something similar. It was sad.

But good that people still help other people. :)
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,962
Location
Old Europe
I played a heavily modded version of Oblivion 2 or 3 years ago. I really loved the game, much more so compared to when I first played it back in 2006 when it came out. Mods that increase enemy difficulty, remove or greatly diminish scaling, and hand placed loot really improve the game a lot.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,897
Location
Oregon
Played the Skyrim version of the Vilja mod, parts of the narrative clearly shows Pratchett's influence, my initual reason for installing it. Has had a lot of work on it. One of the better companion mods out there for Skyrim. Man that article evokes, ah, things.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
264
Location
New Zealand
I'm planning to get a HTC Vive this year, and am greatly looking forwards to seeing if I can't get it working with Oblivion, heavily modded of course. I played Oblivion a good number of years ago, without mods, and absolutely loved it at the time.
 
Kyrer said:
I'm planning to get a HTC Vive this year, and am greatly looking forwards to seeing if I can't get it working with Oblivion, heavily modded of course. I played Oblivion a good number of years ago, without mods, and absolutely loved it at the time.
Click to expand...

I would just say that I've found the tools that force VR in non-VR games don't really deliver a very playable experience. I haven't tried Oblivion, but in Skyrim the experience was interesting, and pretty broken. The proper VR version is the only way to go, IMO.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Unless you have an immunity to motion sickness, I would be wary of expecting anything like a serious gaming session with something like Oblivion.

It's EXTREMELY uncomfortable to walk around in games like that - and I'm speaking as someone who absolutely never gets motion sickness under any other circumstances.

For me, VR is for seated-experience or static motion games (Racing, Space sims, Shooting galleries, etc.).

I've played Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR, Alien Isolation VR and Doom VR - and they're all nearly impossible to play for more than 15-30 minutes without getting sick.

Sure, some of these games offer a "teleportation" movement system - but that's incredibly inflexible compared to normal motion.

Just throwing it out there - as VR can be a very expensive investment.
 
Thanks for the VR feedback! However, I think your last two posts have put the finger on why I've delayed buying a VR set till now. I don't get motion sickness easily, but then I'm yet to try VR at all, and really don't want to spend ~£500 on something that might end up being nothing but a novelty. I was reading threads like this one about Skyrim that made me think it might not be so bad, but I guess I will never know until I try it personally.

I guess I better make up my mind whilst my GBP is still worth something...
 
The Vilja mod in Skyrim was one of the best I ever found. It was great when she would talk with your other companions!
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
8,258
Location
Kansas City
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom