I’m aware that a lot of people have been coming forward lately to enquire about joining our team in some way. Perhaps because of increased attention from Nexus, so we have new people coming in. While this is fantastic, Raven of the Reach is a project that’s been underway for almost a year now. It is still in the writing stage, thanks to many rewrites as the story is changed and quality increased, it has established backgrounds and ways of doing things that we all refer to. Plus there is the fact it is being made in a completely different way to Skyrim Romance. The main difference being that it is not simply a companion whose dialogue/relationship increases with you as you meet encounters who show an interest in you.

For clarification, Raven of the Reach will be a standalone mod and after animations, Skyrim Romance will not be developed further. No more Bishop.

Raven of the Reach is a huge undertaking that requires many areas of talent. I might be becoming a bit of a stuck record on this but we really do aim for it to be equal to a DLC, story-driven as much as  Dragonborn and Dawnguard were. In summary, that means it will not be just a different version of Skyrim Romance. It will have unique armors and objects, new lands and locations, NPCs that matter, and have a large amount of dialogue that can change depending on where you are in the main questline and their personal quests; the estimate is 400+ lines for each, depending on how much they appear.

Contact e-mail is skyrimromance@outlook.com

(do not ask about problems with SRM. That is handled by Mara at wingedtwilightofthedawn@outlook.com)

Not a lot of you are clear on what you can help us with and recruitment posts get lost in the blog index, so for clarity here is a guideline of people we will be looking for:

• Writers – A post detailing all of this and how to audition will be released in January.

• Website Coders – Familiar with WordPress, CSS coding/editing, HTML and all that? Aid is desperately needed.

• Proof-Readers – Every member of our team is a proofreader in a way so to apply for this you would have to be able to dedicate your time consistently and be able to provide a point of view from someone who’d be playing the mod anew. Also, being able to understand story, scripts, and character arcs is an absolute necessity. We have over 100 documents so far, reading and providing constructive criticism is not as easy as it sounds.

• Voice Actors – A post detailing all of this and how to audition will be released in January.

• Meshers – New armors, weapons, accessories, and objects of our design and possibly yours will need to be created! While we will be searching and reaching out to these individuals ourselves, if any of you reading this have that ability and want your efforts to be featured in a project much larger than any of us, hit us up! Even if you are unable to texture or don’t know your way around the Creation Kit, we can pass on your mesh to someone who can in a collaborative effort.

• Modders – I have come to the realization that this is a very broad term, hence all the disambiguations below, but we’re also looking just as broadly. As you may know, Mara is the only modder. A huge undertaking but on a project of this size, it is also overwhelming. What we need is people who know the Creation Kit, can create scenes and branch dialogue cleanly, can help solve errors and bugs, connect scripts and triggers, create quests, and so on. Alas, it is all beyond me but those of you who fit the description will know what I mean.

  • Landscapers – One branch of being a modder can have nothing to do with scripting at all, rather, manipulating the landscape, building locations, placing objects, painting the terrain and so on. We have a land the size of two holds and that land will need much filling. If this appeals to you then we have more than enough space to fill with your creations!

  • Scripters – The part of modding that terrifies me the most. The mind-numbing computer version of Murphy’s Law. However, with that cheery intro, we need a lot of it! With a mod that focuses on new quests, we also need new ways of doing things and finding Bethesda’s scripts to discover how they did things. For example, making everything explode, creating new screen effects for the player’s perspective, reversing a gameplay animation, tracking the time before the player receives a quest, and so on. If you have a familiarity with these things then please e-mail in, we will have a sore need for you.

  • Nav-Meshers – With editing new lands and creating new locations comes the duty of creating functional navmeshes for all of them.  As this mod focuses so heavily on its NPCs and followers, having utterly smooth routing is necessary for everyone not to ragequit our mod. While this skill is one that can be learned, it is a time-consuming and repetitive task that not many of us enjoy. I’m personally prepared to try it but one can only spread themselves in so many directions.
    If navmeshing is something you can do and would like to help out in the next few months, let us know.

• Musicians – From guitar players to singers to composers, we could have a place for you.

  • If you can play an instrument, have a method of recording yourself with complete clarity and quality, and can follow sheet music or a simple tune then your aid would be instrumental to the soundtrack of this mod. Even our composers don’t have access to every instrument out there and having a list of who we could call upon for a specific sound would be extremely useful.

  • Have a penchant for writing songs that fit in with Skyrim’s universe or are interested in doing so? We have musicians who can put your song to a tune and actors who can put a voice to those lyrics. All if you email in.

• Sound Editors – With the sheer amount of sound files coming in, both musical and voicing, we will need someone familiar with Audacity (or another working utility) to handle all of the audio and make sure they all maintain the correct sound level and format. As well as cutting or adding effects should it be required.

• Concept Artists – There are some great artists among us but that is not their main role in this mod. As such I cannot constantly pester them to draw what’s in my head and sadly I cannot draw beyond cute little cartoons. Like Where’s Wally* little. For this, we would need proof of your artistic skills, enough so that a mesher or location creator could see what I or another intends through your art and create it accurately themselves.

• Texture-ers – Of all the HD 10K retextures that are out there for a four year old game, can we take a moment to rage at the injustice of Forsworn Armour NEVER having been retextured?
  Now that that’s over, we need your beautiful textures. As mentioned up above, a mesher may not be able to create an adequate visual layer for their creation or something from the vanilla game (FORSWORN ARMOUR) may need a high-quality overhaul that would be unique to this mod. As far as I understand only a proficient knack and experience with photo editing is needed so even if you’ve never touched modding before, we could use you.

• Translators – Both Skyrim Romance and Raven of the Reach need to have their subtitles and quest journal entries translated in order for people not comfortable with English to play. Either you or someone else will need to input these through the Creation Kit but if you need any further details or are interested then please contact Mara at wingedtwilightofthedawn@outlook.com

• E-mail Support – If you’ve read all the way through to come to this at the bottom, you may be thinking that this is an awful lot to be doing. It is and while handling all of the e-mail was easy to begin with, it’s getting a little out of hand. If you have an interest in helping us out and have a good knowledge of the mod so can answer common questions, you know what to do.

We are all caught up in the festive period but when that is over and SRM is completely finished with its animation releases, further posts will be made for writing auditions and further casting will begin.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

AlassinSane

* “Where’s Waldo” for you Americans. *sniffs* What did Wally ever do to you to have his name changed to something that sounds like a distasteful object?!