Sup Yea Forums. I've always had an interest for the NPCs in Oblivion (TES4), from their ridiculous faces to the Radiant AI system that underpins all their activity. After a fun experience with a certain NPC on my Xbox version of the game, an idea occurred to me. Would it be possible to create an NPC that slowly spreads like a virus throughout Tamriel, to the point where it replaces all other NPCs in the game? Think about it - an NPC that moves spreads in either a random pattern or a pattern with predefined checkpoints (e.g. major population centers) in order to "infect" the entire map.
I've been messing around with the Creation Kit today and I think I've got a pretty good start. I'll post some pictures soon, but the advice of some wise anons would be greatly helpful. Do you think it can be done? I'll make a post explaining what I have already in a moment.
If you mean the Nickies Black copypasta, this isn't that. I did make that however many years ago, it's where I got the idea for this, but this isn't just some buildup for a "gotcha" with that.
The NPC I'm currently using is the one in pic related. He has 70 health, 300 magicka, no items, and three spells: Restore Minor Wounds (the default starting heal spell), Infect (a touch spell with a scripted effect; whoever he uses on will turn into a Nickies Clone instantly), and Mitosis (if a clone is at low health, he will use this and die, but create two new clones in the process). The clones have a few simple AI packages that I hope will be effective: every day at noon they wander around for 360 seconds, and every Sunday at midnight they pick a random city or small town and run to it. The clones are aggressive to everything except each other, the player, and wildlife (excluding deer).
I'm planning for Ground Zero to be the Imperial City Marketplace, as it has a lot of weak NPCs in it. Does this sound like it could work so far?
Monitoring, tell us when you actually start the experiment.
Grayson Stewart
why not deer? they could be helpful to spread the npcs into really off the road locations
Ayden Carter
Exactly, I probably shouldn't have used a double negative there, it made it unclear what I meant. Deer and other "prey" animals are the only wildlife the clones are hostile to.
I'm doing a few preliminary tests before I do a main one. The clones appear to be able to take over the Market District within three minutes, killing or infecting everyone within.
>if a clone is at low health, he will use this and die, but create two new clones in the process When does he uses this instead of the heal spell ?
Hunter White
Do it and post a video of it to youtube or something or i'm going to go to your house and rape your dog.
Ayden Howard
It would be more interesting to start the experiment in a more rural location and track how long it would take for it to reach Imperial City.
Lucas Walker
Yea, the preliminary tests are all looking good. I haven't gone so far as to watch them spread past the Marketplace, I'll save that for the main one.
NPCs in Oblivion generally only use heal spells when at critically low health in combat. The clones will usually use the Mitosis spell whenever in combat, but if they win a battle and aren't at very low health they tend to use the minor spell instead.
I probably will make YouTube videos of it eventually. For now I can do pictures or webms. I'd stream it but I can't post my stream name, for fear of getting banned (as has happened to me with similar ventures in the past).
>I'd stream it but I can't post my stream name, for fear of getting banned Just cover it up with something.
Jace Nguyen
>Do other anons agree with this? I agree too.
Noah Morris
>Do other anons agree with this? Later maybe. First I want to see the outbreak in the Imperial City.
Daniel Thomas
This mod is just another reason why Oblivion will always be better than Skyrim. Skyrims population is so sparse and the towns are so shit that this mod wouldn't be half as entertaining if ported over.
Julian Moore
Maybe. My old streaming software (Bebo) is broken for some reason, so I'll need a sec to get a new one.
I'll do the first showing in the Marketplace, to show how it works, then either also spawn a clone in a rural village and see how long it takes for the two groups to link up, or just start over if anons really want a rural start run.
Yep, in fact one of the main reasons I made the Infect spell rather than just letting the clones brute force their way through fights via numbers is to give them a way to beat essential npcs. Essential NPCs are turned into completely ordinary clones when infected, like everyone else.
Josiah Murphy
Cool stuff. Do the clones of those npcs remain essential?
Alexander Hall
No; I'm not sure if I'd prefer that they do or don't, too.
thing is up, look for it in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Twitch, if some brave user would post the name it'd be appreciated. no ban pl0x and don't forget to bump the thread!
Fuck I wish oblivion was on the switch such a good game
Matthew Green
They never try to enter buildings ?
Isaiah Hughes
JinjaBaker45
Nathaniel Collins
WHY WON'T YOU how do you do?
Owen Morris
Your message wasn't posted due to conflicts with the channel's moderation settings.
Ayden Thomas
Do you play with or without mods? I mean when you are doing a serious playthrough, not just fucking around? What mods are required, gameplay wise? At least new leveled lists I assume?
Angel Cooper
Alright, apologies for the disruption. It should be working now.
You get that when posting in chat?
Aaron Williams
not that particular user but i got it when I tried to use the gamer word
Justin Jenkins
No him but no mod is required to play the game.
Jace Nguyen
>You get that when posting in chat? I tried to say fag you just have to remove automod iirc.
i would recommend adding a script that causes all nickies (once a population threshold is hit) to do certain group behaviors, like gather in town squares and run around in circles making whooping noises at midnight.
another idea is to let them progress with stats and gear if a clone is left alive too long. slowly getting iron, steel, orcish gear as every in game week passes.
to kick it off, once a certain balance is hit (of many low level nickies, or a few high level nickies) to amass at ground zero and sacrifice themselves to summon a giant mehrunes dagon tier nickie that fucks shit up and spawn more nude nickies.
would make it a genuine challenge to keep up with.
Aaron Robinson
>once a certain balance is hit (of many low level nickies, or a few high level nickies) to amass at ground zero and sacrifice themselves MAKE US WHOLE
Are you the guy that did the journey to the edge of Oblivion threads? I wish I liked the game this much.
Brandon Mitchell
You just need to like the bugs.
Kayden Torres
Can they infect the player?
Easton James
I am, yes.
They've breached Bravil and Skingrad. The Imperial City was decimated but most of them have since left it, so it's ok for now. There are groups of them hovering outside of Anvil and Bruma, but not yet going inside. This is escalating a lot faster than I thought.
this. but also to remove the "run to random city on sunday." let their aimless wandering spread their existence naturally. personally i think the infect spell is OP, too. mitosis is more interesting
Is there a reason you're playing at such a low resolution?
Thomas Reed
Yes. But only those who can read have the right to now why.
Daniel Cruz
He thinks these character models take up a lot of gpu power.
Michael Lopez
a bunch of NPCs tank the framerate of the engine. probably CPU-limited
Logan Clark
Then resolution has no impact.
Landon Long
It's both. The AI is very CPU heavy but Oblivion's implementation of some things, like shadows, is not exactly efficient and lots of NPCs with, for example, self shadowing will tank the framerate even on modern hardware.
That wraps up tonight's stream! The clones successfully infected every major city in Cyrodiil. Over 190 of them were calculated to be in the castles of the major cities alone, with more on patrols between cities and even more standing around randomly. If you guys wanna stick around, I'll try to be uploading some screenshots and webms / gifs in the next few minutes. If anyone else has any to share as well, do so now.
I'm going to be trying this again with improvements made soon.
because the issue here is Oblivion and Gamebryo, not his PC
Oblivion is from 2006, this is before improvments made to the engine with Skyrim and FO4 that greatly improved how the engine handles larger amounts of actors on screen at once
FO4 especially had some big improvements, skirmishes that would cripple FO3 or Skyrim no longer do so.
Wyatt Parker
I MISSED A FUCKING NICKIES STREAM? FUCK I SHOULDVE PAID MORE ATTENTION FUXK
This is it. Where it all could've been contained. Atleast the first clone didnt kill anyone and had to mitosis
Brayden Butler
The damn webms all come out to more than 3 mb no matter what I do. Ah, well. I'll be making highlights of the stream tomorrow, I guess that'll have to do. I hope you anons enjoyed it, and keep an eye out for my next thread, whenever I make it.
