Quest of the 4th Wall

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Stragonian's picture
Stragonian
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"Quest of the 4th Wall", is a unquie book found in some weird location within Morrowind somewhere, it has 10 clues to 10 MacGuffins, all related to characters who have broken the 4th Wall in other stories.

#10. Burt from “Mart Poppins” (1964)
#9. Zack Morris from “Saved by the Bell” (1989-93)
#8. Wayne Campbell from “Wayne’s World” (1992)
#7. Malcolm from “Malcolm in the Middle” (2000-06)
#6. Bernie Mac from “The Bernie Mac Show” (2001-06)
#5. Ferris Buller from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986)
#4. The Mask from "The Mask" (1994)
#3. Deadpool from "Deadpool" (2016)
#2. Pinkie Pie from "My Little Pony" (2010-)
#1. Bugs Bunny from "Looney Tunes" (1930-)

After the player aquires all 10 MacGuffins, based on the clues within the book "Quest of the 4th Wall", it unlocks the players awareness that their in a video game.

The player is then given hundreds of new addtional 4th wall breaking comments when interaction with NPC's, and such.

The player could making comments on game updates, making sarcastic comments on release dates of new things, and bug fixes, and have developers write jokes about themselves within their own quests, that the player can uses in the game.

For example, if a developer writes a quest with an Argonian NPC called "Gorn", the same quest author could write 4th wall comments that the in game player could say, during the quest like ...

"Wow! Dev so and so, must have stayed up to late watching old episodes of Star Trek TOS, to come up with a name like Gorn, for an Argonian."

It would in small part allow the develops, to get some fun joking recognition within the game.

Cicero's picture
Cicero
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This was posted elsewhere already. Why the double post? 

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Stragonian
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I'm suprised that there arn't double posts all over this forum, seeing how a new person can't even "delete" their own posts, or delete their own replies.

So, if I had access to "delete" my own replies, there would only be one post of this.

Anyway, since I can't even delete my own posts, I decided to edit the other mention of the "Quest of the 4th Wall", and reduce it to a ".", it's the closest I could come to deleting it.

I'll just have to remember that in this forum from now on, since I can't delete even my own posts, If I do want to delete them, I'll just have to edit their content down to as close to nothing as possible.

Stragonian's picture
Stragonian
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I tried to delete the other one, but it told me "Access Denied".  Anyway, I have started working on the text of the book, "Quest of the 4th Wall"

Cicero's picture
Cicero
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Deleted your post on the other thread.

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Stragonian
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Cool! Thank You very much.

I had this really cool reply all typed out, to say thank you for your help, in deleting my duplicate post, but when I tried to submit it, I just got a screen informing me the website was doing maintenance, so you lost the whole super cool thank you, and all you're left with is this lame one.

Anyway, ... here is an excerpts from the book "Quest of the 4th Wall" ...

"So, how does a video game avatar go about to unlock these phenominal cosmic powers, of 4th wall breaking comments within this video game?  Listen very carefully because here is the deal, this mod has added ten macguffins within the video game.  These ten macguffins all have something to do with a 4th wall breaking character in another intellectual property, and because I lost my solid flow of income nearly a year ago, since I had some kind of blood borne parasite or something attack my person, yeah. fun times.  I don't have the cash to license said intellectual properties for use of their names within this gaming mod, so you will have to settle for similitudes of their names, with no true confirmation as to who they are truly refering to.  I am however sure that your video game playing overlord, is smart enough to figure them out."

One of the clues ...

"Your next clue is to go to a small pool north of Port Telvannis, east of Harlan Camp, and seek out a man named Ryan in the pool.  Although, I do warn you, that even though Ryan is in a pool, he is dead.  He once ran a rental shop, called Ryan's Rentals in some town or another, who cares, what's important is that the store was just a front, because Ryan was really a mercenary, who went by the code name Wade, but alas poor Wade of Ryan's Rentals had a foul mouth, and that was his undoing, because nobody likes a sassy merc.  Anyway, Ryan is forever honored in a suite that reflects his best rental ever, he is completely dressed in a full suit of glass armor, he has a glass ring, and a glass lantern, so take both the ring and the latern, and give peace to Ryan's tortured soul."

"P.S. If you find a note on Ryan, do not read the note."

Now, I just need to get more practice at using OpenMW-CS, to make it all happen.

Are their other tools for building Morrowind mods?  I see that some people are using Blender too.  I have used Blender in the past, just not for exporting files into games, mostly for video editing.

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This would be better suited to an independent mod. It has little to do with Tamriel Rebuilt.

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Stragonian
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Where do people do independent mods?

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To expand on Charger's comment, Tamriel Rebuilt does contain some silly things and developer self-references (i.e., the quests "When interiors don't match the exteriors" and the one involving the mosaic and the mason, both in Old Ebonheart). But to my knowledge, the mod never explicitly breaks the 4th wall, nor includes unconcealed pop culture references. This is because Tamriel Rebuilt aims to be identical in tone to the original game, which usually takes itself quite seriously (M'Aiq being the one exception that proves the rule).

Furthermore, to comment on "The player is then given hundreds of new addtional 4th wall breaking comments when interaction with NPC's, and such," and the following -- all of this implies a lot of work. Adding hundreds of unlockable dialogue lines to existing quests is tons of labor and very likely to cause at least some new bugs. And certainly, most quest devs wouldn't be happy if they were suddenly required to write silly stuff like that for every quest. Very likely the only person motivated to do this is you -- but don't worry, that's the case with almost every quest concept :)

So, if you want to add this type of content in Tamriel Rebuilt, you are certainly welcome to make an independent mod that depends on Tamriel Rebuilt, as Charger said. Keep in mind that it can be surprisingly time-intensive to do even the most simple quest. So, I'd recommend you first boil your concept down to the simplest part you can, and finish that first. Otherwise it's very likely you'll lose motivation midway through. To learn how to do it, look for tutorials in the TR handbook (in the top bar, under 'About').

As for where people do independent mods -- the Morrowind Nexus is where most Morrowind mods are posted. If you want help with the quest, you can ask for it on our Discord (you'll find a link on the top bar, under 'Community'). But probably the best place to ask is the Morrowind Modding Community, which is another very active Discord server. Be careful, though -- they may be somewhat "direct" in their feedback.

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Stragonian
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Thank you for your help, and for answering my question.

I have however found many references to our wolrd in Morrowind.

I've noticed numberious references to the book 1984, by George Orwell, throughout Morrowind, an obvious one is, the "Ministry of Truth", and other references like an Edgar Allan Poe reference, Art of War Magic, Boat Ack, Book of Dawn and Dusk, Ashu-Ahhe, Dun-Ahhe, Tin-Ahhe are references to Assyrian and Babylonian kings, Ashur-nadin-ahhe Marduk-nadin-ahhe, Charles the Plant, speaking furniture reminds me of Beuty and the Beast, Eltonbrand and Elton Brand, Fat Lute, Final Fantasy references, Fishy Stick, references to Monty Python's Flying Circus, Gentleman Jim, references to Greek mythology, Peke Utchoo in Mudan Grotto, and other Pokémon references, references to college sports teams, the list just goes on and on ...

There are already a tons of Earthly references throughout Morrowind, this quest would just make a quest of them, rather than leave them as a point of nostalgia in the game.

But, I get it, not every hits a home run.

I also notice that there are mods for OpenMW written in Lua, and many game AI's are written in Lua.

I also think maybe Open Source AI's like MyCroft AI could be taught dialog, decision making, animation handling, and tactics, for video games, taking video game fun to a whole new level.  It would be  like playing a video game, and Siri or Alexa would be playing all the NPC's.

It would make in game AI, seem more like real human interaction, and not just preprogrammed game play.

Anyway, thank you for your reply!

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Any Rick and Morty easter eggs?