Trailer for the Vale Rangers shown during exhibition at the Guildhall

Vale Rangers - Synopsis

During this project, I served as a level designer working on a series of new quests for the game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. My tasks included designing two new dungeon levels, creating and recording 200+ lines of new dialogue and voice over audio, creating 12 unique NPCs for the player to interact with, eight scripted events and puzzles the player encountered during the new quests and journal updates for all new quests. The overall project of Vale Rangers encompassed providing players with new quests, a new story arc and guild to join and most importantly the addition of an animal companion that accompanies players during the story arc and through the rest of the overall game. For this team project my overall goals consist of the following:

• Provide an interesting experience for the player when testing their character’s marksmanship skill

• Develop interesting and meaningful dialogue and characters for the game’s story that draw the player’s interest in a short amount of time

• Create a stealth based dungeon level that showcased the abilities of the player’s weapons obtained during the overall quest

• Script a challenging boss battle that used previously encountered characters as reinforcements for the player during the battle

• Script a strategy based battle and design a dungeon setting for the final boss of the game

Shot of the journal update given to the player when they accept the archery contest in Vale Rangers.

After accepting the task of competing in an archery contest, the player finds an archer in the camp and challenges them to a contest.  A major hurdle encountered during the creation of the competition itself consists of the player feeling a little lost on which target they needed to shoot at during the competition.  Early designs of the competition allowed the player too much freedom.  The archer would move to his place and start the competition by firing at a practice target laid in front of him.  The player had a separate target to shoot at and often the player chose to fire at the same target as the archer.  To fix this problem, once the player challenged the archer to a contest, the screen dimmed and both the player and the archer were placed into their respective positions on the archery field.  In addition to placing the player into the appropriate spot for the competition, journal messages appeared for each stage of the contest, letting the player know when the contest began and completed.

Branching dialogue in Vale Rangers allows the player to choose to accept the archery contest now or leave the task for a later time.

Shot of the player challenging a Vale Archer to an archery contest.

After challenging the archer to a contest, the player is placed into position and provided with an on-screen update on what to do next in Vale Rangers.

Another consideration taken into account for the contest was the possibility that the player may not readily have a bow and arrow before entering the contest.  With this in mind, a set of arrows and a bow exists near the player’s position during the contest allowing them easy access to the required weapons needed to compete in the challenge.

When the competition begins, if the player does not have a bow and arrow, one is provided for them near their mark on the field.

Players position on the archery range during the archery competition in Vale Rangers.

At the conclusion of the archery competition, the player is notified via a journal update whether they won the competition or must return and challenge the archer again after raising their marksmanship stats.

Journal update with the results of the archery competition in Vale Rangers.

See it in action!
 

A second important element of my involvement with Vale Rangers consists of creating memorable characters and interesting story elements.  During a quest that required the player to retrieve information from a castle called New Haven, the player encounters a blockade in front of the castle maintained by a band of orcs.  The player must meet with the orcs’ captain to seek permission to pass into the castle.  Captain Gagfrak however is not the typical orc, in fact he turns out to be a lovesick orc who is using the blockade to gain the attention of an elven princess inside the castle. 

Captain Gagfrak, the romantic orc of Vale Rangers.

The idea of the lovesick orc comes from classical literature’s very own story of Cyrano de Bergerac, a man who had the words to win women’s hearts but not the physical appearance.  Gagfrak is similar to this idea with a splash of Romeo & Juliet tossed in with the racial differences between himself and his love interest.

The small story element of Gagfrak served only as a mini-quest to the larger quest of retrieving information from New Haven but his plight and storyline serves to be a very unique element that player’s talk about well after the quest is complete.

 Gagfrak sends players off on a task of gathering flowers for a bouquet to take to his love before the player is allowed passage into New Haven.  During the task frequent journal updates provide an exact explanation of the quests requirements and what remains to complete Gagfrak’s request.

Journal update displaying Captain Gagfrak’s request of the player before allowing them into New Haven.

Frequent journal updates let the players know exactly where they are in the quest for Gagfrak’s bouquet of flowers.

Once the player recovers the bouquet for Gagfrak and returns to him, Gagfrak then provides a note for the player to take to his love in New Haven.  Colorful and interesting dialogue serves to make all of the quest fun and engaging for the player.

Orc guard who lets the player pass into New Haven only after they have received a love letter from Gagfrak to his love interest.

As it turns out, the same person the player must gather information from turns out to be Gagfrak’s love interest.  As with other dialogue in the game, a full branching tree of options are available for ways the player can deliver Gagfrak’s gifts, including deceiving the woman into thinking the gifts are from the player instead of Gagfrak.

Niennah, Gagfrak’s love interest and another important character involved in the plot of Vale Rangers.

After delivering Gagfrak’s gifts, they encounter him one last time before the quest is finished.

Returning to Gagfrak with a response from his true love.

More unique and interesting dialogue from a small and colorful character in a broad spanning story line of Vale Rangers.

See it in action!

For one of the dungeon levels I created for Vale Rangers, I was tasked with the responsibility of creating a level that would make good use of a new weapon the player receives in the quest before.  This new item, the Bow of Shadows, gave the player higher skill levels in stealth as well as a once a day power that provided a brief period of complete invisibility and night vision.  In order to exploit these bonuses the weapon gave the player, I created a stealth based mission.  The mission required players to sneak through a dungeon full of enemies and retrieve a tome without being seen or engaging any of the enemies found in the dungeon.

On-screen message letting the player know when they fail the stealth mission.

Checking for the player’s position in the dungeon against the dungeon guard’s vision was based on a combination of detection checks performed by visible NPCs set on patrol paths throughout the dungeon and invisible NPCs placed at various points along the NPCs patrol paths.  The detection test is set in script that runs while the quest is active.  This detection script uses the NPCs AI to detect the level of alertness the NPC has based on the proximity of the player.  Detection works from a combination of sound and the player’s visibility while in lit areas of the dungeon.

The player must use both his stealth ability and the powers from granted from the Bow of Shadows to avoid the dungeon guard.

The base stat boosts provided to the player from the Bow of Shadows assists the player while sneaking through the mission and once they recover the tome, the player can use the invisibility spell provided by the bow to make it back out of the dungeon, completely unnoticed.

Quest update after the player retrieves the tome.

This dungeon highlights the Bow of Shadows weapon and displays its usefulness to the player.  The final element of this mission was to solidify a reoccurring character that has only played a minor annoyance role to the player.  Until this mission, the player has encountered a character named Lenwe on several occasions who has made threats and warnings to the player to give up their quests for the Vale Rangers.  It is at the end of this mission that this minor character now becomes a major player in the storyline by stealing the Bow of Shadows from the player.  This occurs after the player completes their quest to recover the tome from the dungeon and fully experiences the benefits of the weapon.  By encouraging the player to utilize the new weapon before it is taken away, players form a strong opinion on the character of Lenwe and his intentions.

Lenwe as he takes the Bow of Shadows from the player on their completion of the stealth based quest.

See it in action!
 

For the finale of the game, we wanted to have two large battles, one being a long and difficult enemy that requires the player to seek the aid of other NPCs to win and the second battle being difficult at first but easy once the correct strategy to defeat the enemy is found.

 With this criteria in mind, my first task for the first battle was to devise a method of checking on the player’s current health and when at a certain level, call in reinforcements to aid the player during the battle.  For this I used a global variable that stored the current health of the player before the battle began.  During the battle I used script running during the quest to check the player’s current health against their starting health.  When the player reached half their initial health, I then moved the reinforcement NPCs into a position 500 units away from the player and began their attack AI on the enemy.  At this distance, the player did not see the NPCs spawn in but instead they were given the impression that the NPCs have traveled to the scene to aid the player during the battle.

Using NPCs as reinforcements during a difficult battle for the player in Vale Rangers.

The NPCs used to aid the player during their battle were characters introduced through previous quests in the story.  Gagfrak and his guard return as well as Lenwe to help the player in his time of need.

Once the reinforcements arrived, the battle quickly turned in favor of the player.  Until this point, to insure that the player could not easily defeat the enemy, the quest script used a powerful regeneration spell to keep the enemy healthy long enough for the reinforcements to arrive.  Once the reinforcements arrive, this regeneration spell is taken off the enemy, appearing to the player that now with the aid of others the enemy can finally be overcome.

The return of previously encountered characters in the Vale Rangers story arc who help out in one of the final battles.

See it in action!
 

The second battle of the finale required the player to take on a foe not yet encountered.  For this the player receives the final piece of a new set of armor and the Bow of Shadows is returned to the player as well.  Even though the player does not receive reinforcements during this battle, a simple strategy is all that is required to overcome the dark elf druid Aerandir. 

 Using journal scripting once again, I gave this enemy a regeneration spell similar to the enemy before.  This time however, the spell remains until a crystal found in the enemy’s lair is destroyed.  The crystal resided on a statue found in the dungeon and emitted the animation of a ranged health spell being constantly cast on the enemy.  This visual cue provides players with a hint on the strategy needed to defeat the enemy.

The final enemy of Vale Rangers being healed by his magic crystal before it is destroyed by the player.

As with most NPCs in Vale Rangers I wanted to make this villain a memorable one even though players only encounter him briefly before the final battle.  Designing the dialogue and choosing the best voice actor for the role were both critical in making this villain a memorable character.

Aerandir, the dark elf druid, main villain of Vale Rangers.

Once players find the strategy of destroying the crystal ball healing Aerandir, the enemy loses his regeneration spell in the journal script and is defeated quickly.

After loosing his healing crystal, Aerandir is quickly defeated by the player and his animal companion.

See it in action!
 

Vale Rangers was a three-month project completed between the months of January to March 2007 and the team working on the project consisted of two level designers and a faculty project advisor.  During this project I learned many solutions to common issues in story based role-playing games such as the most efficient use of character driven dialogue, informative journal updates and interesting scripting that keeps players involved in the game.