Mebentie's Service

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:17 am

Long ago, sometime in the late second era, Sheogorath, being his restless self, decided to take mortal form and walk the earth among men. Not long after he started doing this, Sheogorath met a Breton in Morrowind who was claming to have discovered the greatest game ever known to Nirn, it had been invented by the High Elves and until then was only known of in Summerset, he was touring the world teaching people about it, and he was sure that it was going to become very popular. The BretonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s name was Mebentie, and the game he carried with him was Chess.
Sheogorath had Mebentie teach him this game and in no time sheogorath was becoming obsessed, it was such a good game. After a couple of lessons, sheogorath reveiled himself to Mebentie as the Mad God, infront of the old man Sheogorath opened a portal to his palace inside oblivion and carried Mebentie into it teleporting both himself and Mebentie to Oblivion. Mebentie was in shock of course, but Sheogorath calmed him, Ã¢â‚¬Å“All I want Is to have you play chess against me until I beat you at your best. We will start now and if you try and leave before I say you can, or cheat, or let me win I will kill you, remember I can read your mind.Ã¢â‚¬Â
The man agreed as he had no real say in the matter, and they began to play. Game after game Mebentie beat the Mad God, and with each defeat Sheogorath became more and more obsessed. Days passed, and they turned into weeks, and weeks into mounths, and mouths into years. As sheogorath reached a point where he could not get any better. The Breton was a master and could never be beaten. Sheogorath finally gave up trying to beat Mebentie when at last the man died of old age. In a disappointed fit, Sheogorath tossed the chess set back into Nirn, and gave up the game forever.
The set, after spending so many years being played with by a god, developed into a very powerful magical object as a whole set. Its power was the power of control, when the set is played upon with all the pieces, between two people, whoever wins gains complete control over the loser for the rest of the loserÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s natural life.

The set has come to be known as MebentieÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Service. MebentieÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Service has been used a number of times throughout the third era by whoever was lucky enough to come across the set and also good enough to beat somebody they wished to control at the game. The last known owner of MebentieÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Service was Redoran Nobility Morns Rarayn. But when she died somehow the set disappered off the radar. It is believed that a mysterious relative of the noble lady, who felt MebentieÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Service was a dangerous artifact that should not be used by mortals ever again, stole the set and spread its pieces throughout Morrowind, and perhaps even throughout all of Tamriel.

Garriath · Post by **Garriath** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:43 am

Fun story, but this ought to be in the Models forum, as this forum is typically reserved for already existing lore or holes in it.

Oh, and has Sheogorath ever been called the Mad God in-game or from a dev? I was under the impression that that term was used only for Almalexia (by gamers).

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:03 am

daM doG - that's how he's called on ESF. And that's pretty interesting story but there's no mentioning of such thing in lore. So sorry, I guess it won't be incorporated into TR.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:36 am

Stalker wrote:daM doG - that's how he's called on ESF. And that's pretty interesting story but there's no mentioning of such thing in lore. So sorry, I guess it won't be incorporated into TR.

But then again there's no specific prohibition. And Sheogorath wouldn't want it to be widely known that he was outwitted. Maybe add some (unfounded) suspicions that this Mebestie character was a daedra/aedra trying to mess with Sheogorath, or at least had divine help (I'm not saying that he'd couldn't be a uniquely gifted mortal, it would just be that such rumors would arise)

Garriath · Post by **Garriath** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:30 pm

Stalker, if we won't incorporate anything 'just because there's no mention of lore in it' then TR is going to royally suck. Seriously.

You all know me; I'm one of the chief believers that we ought to follow lore to the last word.

But... we can't make anything up? Bullshit.

Nearly every single artifact mentioned in lore was already in the original game. Does that mean we can't make any new ones? Oh, and it never mentioned Firewatch had any citizens. I guess we can't put any NPCs in there either...

You get my point.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:53 pm

Garriath such a great artifact that has a sign of Daedra influence MUST be mentioned in lore.
Plus don't exaggerate it all. It doesn't make you any honor...

battle_bison · Post by **battle_bison** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 5:28 pm

We shouldn't disallow it just because it's too powerful. Morrowind mainland, and for that matter the rest of Tamriel, is going to need some really powerful artifacts on it. Without any awsome items to find like that, it will really make it uninteresting.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:30 pm

Okay. Wabbajack, Skull of Corruption. Both are EXTREMLY powerful and made by the same manufacturer. Rejoice. And don't forget to visit you docotor every time you use them ! If it's made into something less powerful - that's OK, but now it's just too famous to be unknown. Change daM doG into powerful wizard and the problem solved.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:10 pm

Here`s my idea. When Sheadorath pitches the chest board into Nirn, the peices get scatered to god knows where. That way it would be limitly known and its power would be less. In the game, we could seperate it all into the board and its pieces. The boad is just and old daedric artifact. All of them are. When you`ve found all the pieces, you go to some lost Altmer wizard and he tells you that it`s a chess game. He removes it from your inventory and you get the complete set. He then asks you to play with him. Don`t know how that`ll work but I`m sure it`s possible to make some sort of chess game in Tamriel Rebuilt.

I`m thinking of how it would work. Might be hard though. We`d have to make like a thousand dialogues all with different options and choices. And even tht would be rather complicated. But not impossible. Never is it impossible. Just very, very, very long. I could, however, perhaps just make one game. But the number of dialogues would be tremendous. Enormous. The amount of scripting would be just choices and reponses. But the result would be very interesting. Not to menshion enjoyable. But that`s a project on its own.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:12 pm

Power does not equal fame. Especially if a certain Daedra lord does not want such knowledge to be passed around.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:21 pm

2Zalz
It's not fame we're talking about, it's lore.
Colostriph's suggestion sounds a reasonable solution for the problem. Except that that EXTREMLY hard to make a chess game. You will actually need to write AI for it. And you don't even IMGAINE what the pain in the ass it is. Millions of if's when we are limited to 255 makes it actually impossible at all.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:32 pm

If we only used dialogue topics, it wouldn`t be impossible, just very, very, long. I could do it, but I`d have to sketche all the possible results to one choice. And then open numerous topics. But that`s only for one game. And I was sorta planning on the Npc dieing after or becomeing your mindless slave. If you lose he casts a spell on you and then you resist and he decides to kill you. Perhaps we could some how make a new AI out of an already existing computer chess game? It would be hardcoded I`m guessing, but imagine how much TR would get out of actually being able to play chess.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:53 pm

Through dialogues it would be impossible also. First you need to make some sort of AI. To do it you need to calculate ALL possible NPC move for every PC move. Still there ? Than you need to actually write down that dialogues. Still with me ? OK. Than we will have something like a few k's of dialogue lines which must be tested. Are you still with me ? Such an unbeateable person... And than we need a player who will be willing to draw a chess board (a hoards of people have never seen one) to calculate their and their opponents move. Here ya go. R.I.P.

battle_bison · Post by **battle_bison** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:04 pm

I'm pretty sure what zalzidrax meant was that just because this weapon is powerful and may have been involved in an epic tale of some kind, someone with as much power as Sheogorath would be able to keep it all hush hush. It's amazingly powerful, but Sheogorath would be far too arrogant to let everyone know he was beat, so he would use his powers to prevent its knowledge from being passed around. Only rumours exist from those who had seen it or known people who had.
Basically, a mad god could keep it secret and it could still be amazingly powerful.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:41 pm

So secret that even devs themselves don't know about it... OK, OK I'm just being over-ironic.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:11 pm

do you guys think Sheogorath is actually the right demon for this? Now that i think about it, soemthing as insane as the spirit of maddness it self wouldn't really feel right takeing to soemthing that requires so much logic as Chess does. Any better suggestions for who this magic could more apropriatly come from?

Psyborg · Post by **Psyborg** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:56 pm

Well, he never won, right? Maybe he liked it because of the control, because it was a mini-representation of something. Like: we live boring, everyday lives. Every day. Kind of boring, right? But then, along comes the Sims! The power to live other people's boring, everyday lives through those people! Bingo! World's best selling PC game!

Shouldn't make sense, but it does. Kind of mad in itself, the logic. Maybe Sheogorath likes it because of the madness in the reasoning that he- (trails off and eats a handful of cheesy crackers and takes a bite of a Taco Bell taco, drips hot sauce on himself, and toddles away to the bathroom to clean up)

Point is, good ol' Sheogorath seems perfect for the part to me, but then again, I'm a bit mad myself, so...

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:04 am

yeah, i should just think about all the chess players i know. they're all little sheogoraths themselves. all of them.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:22 am

could you not just steal soemone elses chess game AI and use it in the CS?

Post by **Haplo** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:25 am

Edit button. It works, you know.

sirwootalot123 · Post by **sirwootalot123** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:26 am

I would use vaernima. he is under-used and all wizard-like.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:26 am

Sheogarath, to me, seems like the perfect god. I can't see merhunes or molag bal. Not azura. Defeanetly not Hircine. And Mephala I don't know. And besides the other daedra Princes, he looks, even physically, perfect for the part (from the pics. I've seen at least. He is worshipped or followed by Golden Saints which are extremely inteligent themselves (doesn't mean he is to).

@Stalker, we could always use a long, long, long script to reanact it. Scripts are different then dialogues, at least me thinks. Do scripts have a limit of characters?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:52 am

yeah you guys are right, Sheogorath is perfect. Im thinking of making a better version of the story to fit in more precise detailes and make it make more sens. Like prehaps it could be someday used as New Lore or a book in the game telling the player about it. maybe Mebentie's jurnal will be the trigger for the quest to find all the peices. i dont know anythign about CS editing and i dont have enough time right now to learn it. so if you guys want to use it someone other than me has to claim responcibility.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:31 am

To be cliche...

What if the pieces were recovered by various people throughout Tamriel, and their dormant power made these people chessmasters in their own right? And you had to beat them in a game to win each piece... Or had to win the game, and capture the piece in question.

And when you had assembled the board and pieces -- which should look appropriately menacing and Daedric -- you were called upon to play one last game against an avatar of Sheogorath. If you win, Sheogorath hedges his bets by giving you control of only his avatar. If you lose, he commands you do perform a nut-job quest and gives you the option to try again, with further quests if you continue to lose. If the player kills the avatar during any of this, he is fatally smote by Sheogorath.

Although that would be a lot of games to get the set together.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 8:07 am

Give a reason why the chessmasters only took one peice each?
Another thing is that Sheogorath's avatar would probably be so much greater than the PC at everything but chess and ratonality that I think unless this quest is made to an absolutly dynamic scale and it takes you up against some of the hardest quests imaginable, the reward would not fit the deed.
Unless people wanna change the story, Sheogorath cast away the Mebentie's Service forever and is no longer interested in chess, it is completly a mortal matter now.

I also just thought that since it's the Mad God we are talking about here, and also how things went down between Mebentie and Sheogorath in my story, I think it'd be an even more twisted artifact if the person who won was always left under the control of the loser istead of vis versa. I mean I am willing to discard this idea but just think about it for a moment. the item would be even more powerful and even more twisted. and if creating a chess program in TR is impossible we could just skip it and give the PC using the game to control people the option of letting the opponite win.

Another thing, this is a question for the programmers interested in dealing with this, what if you created an animation for the chess board in its complete form that only looked like you and whatever opponite are playing chess on it, but the real game is a game of who has the higher Intellegence. you do somekind of check to see what the players' intellegences scores are are and the game lasts a certain amount of time acorrding to how high they are. and the higher always wins. its like the AD&D way out i guess.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:03 am

I repeat it again - it is IMPOSSIBLE to make chess AI in TES. Imposible. You know a simple game Zero-Crosses (I dunno how it is called in English):

Code: Select all

x|o|x
o|x|o
x|o|x

So AI for this take took me aprox. 1000 lines of code. With amound of if's you never even imagine. But it has Player vs. PC, Player vs. Player and PC vs. PC plus 3 difficulty levels. And now imagine chess, one dificulty level, PLayer vs. PC only, a board with 64 squares and millions of possible moves. So no chess AI. Point.

Of course we can you Intelligence comprasion like DoomDrum suggested. That would be extremly easy. And actually working. Intelligence+Luck will be even more wise I think.

Plus I still think that it's too powerful to be unknown.

Oh, and if it'll be made, I think Earl's idea sounds good. The chess must be scattered around so it would be more interesting quest. Plus maybe the set itself should look like: daedric-looking board+normal looking figurines ?

Uldar · Post by **Uldar** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:58 am

My two cents worth...

This idea has some merit but there are a few things I would suggest:

I think I would rename and rework the game to be something more Tamrielic. More Aldmeri in origin. Keep the basics of chess, but maybe add or subtract pieces and squares. Maybe even change the board to squares and circles. Perhaps the pieces could be representations of the Aedra and Deadra.

Instead of having it so that you need to play the game to gain the effects (as this is a scripting impossibility), perhaps have it so that the individual pieces/board each have an effect on the player but only when in the player's inventory. Get the whole set and the effects become permanent, whether the player is carrying the set or not.

Possibly the effects could be polarised so that having the black pieces has a negative effect, the white pieces a positive one. Once you have the whole set it functions like the Oogma Infinium in that you can distribute the points as you see fit.

The thing would be to try to make it so that the black and white pieces cancel each other out in such a way that, in the end, there is a greater bonus than penalty, so it is a worthwhile effort to collect the artifact. Perhaps the board shifts it to an overall bonus.

Having the set scattered throughout Nirn opens up a long standing questline for the player. We could add quests for pieces to each map we add, depending on the number of pieces/maps. The quests should be difficult to stumble upon, though once you start on one quest there should be leads to other quests. To make this work, each quest would have to have two references to other quests, that way you could pick up the quest line at any point. On your first quest you get two new leads, and on each subsequent quest there is a reference to your prior quest and a lead to a new one.

OK, so that is a little more than two cents...

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:24 pm

Now I actually think that it's extremly bad that we can't make a chess player AI. That way if player would win a game the board will open and he will find Oghma Infinum (the chess board will be under Hermy's supervision).

Garriath · Post by **Garriath** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:10 pm

If this was already said, sorry, but there is a mod that adds both a chessboard and full AI to play the game in Morrowin.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:40 pm

Yes, I do remember seeing that while skipping through mods and other utilities. Garriath, could you please fetch it if you have the time? Or just tell me where you saw it? I'd love to have a look at it.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:54 pm

I know the mod that adds a chessboard but I dunno about the AI. And if it's really and AI (Artificial Intellect) but not AI(Artificial Idiot) you can come and kick me.

Lord_Gallant · Post by **Lord_Gallant** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:14 pm

Bear in mind that power doesn't equal fame when it comes to artifacts. The Mace of Aevar Stonesinger is the highest physical damage potential in the game, yet you never hear of it outside of Solstheim. Kagrenac's tools were only really well-known within Morrowind (though some Imperial scholars knew about them) and didn't carry nearly the same fame as Azura's Star or Mehrunes' Razor.

Yes this artifact would be affiliated with a daedra prince, but it is not something that Sheogorath would claim as "his", unlike the Wabbajack (the Spear of Bitter Mercy I think he stole from Hircine). Because of this it wouldn't be as famous. Especially if there were a cover-up for the prince's embarassment of losing in a game to a mortal.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:43 pm

OK. Let it be so. Than let's form up a quest and work on how to implement it.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:44 pm

First, before we even think up a quest, can we take a look at the system or ``AI``

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:48 pm

As it was mentioned before it can be done even without AI. Of cours it won't be so much fun but nevertheless it'll be wroking.

Lord_Gallant · Post by **Lord_Gallant** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:55 pm

Nothing would beat the coolness of actually being able to play a game of chess in Morrowind, so it might be worth a shot to try to find that mod to supposedly does this (I have my doubts). If it doesn't work like we'd hoped, it would still be a neat artifact to have with just the Intel+Luck comparison, but I think we should throw a random modifier in there as well. Maybe a percent-based one, so that you can't just drink a few homemade Intel potions and get a googleplex Intel score for 50 years, then dominate everyone in Tamriel. Come to think of it, that might well be a big problem anyway.

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:26 pm

Making something as simple as a chess game is very hard. You have to remember thats scripts do what we tell them to. Chess is hardly a game of luck. It is most probably 90% strategy and 10% luck. That's reality. And making a chess game looks very hard.

I mean, think about it. You have to consider that some times a person will make mistakes, they will not think, and lose. Making this through dialogues and scripts that open dialogue boxes is close to impossible. Not impossible, but rather very improbable. It's a project on it's own.

The person making it has to be good at chess, know it inside out, know all the moves and tricks to beet someone. While scripting it, the person will also have to take into account every piece on the board's surface and their possition. I'm still pondering the amount of possibilities there can be:

64 squares
32 pieces

I'm most probably wrong but here's the start of my equation: 64x32=2048. Now, that's the amount of squares all the pieces can occupy. Not counting where they can be placed on the board, different formations, different capabilities, and movements. Technically, the number of possabilities is endless (this is a bit of an exageration). And that's how we'd do it with out real, CS scripting. Millions of scripts. Maybe more. For all we know it could be a bigger project then TR (not saying it is, nor am I saying I think it is).

The best way (not the easiest) in my mind is to somehow take the AI from another already existing chess game (which was not created with the CS) and somehow hook it up to the main game. Haven't a clue if this is possible, so don't kill me for being wrong.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:33 pm

As simple as a chess game ??? I think you have never player chess... And actually to write a normal chess AI TES scripting capabilities is not enough. There's not arrays to say the least.

Psyborg · Post by **Psyborg** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:35 pm

Chess... yeah, that would be near impossible. But, hey, this is a fantasy game, right? Why not make a new game? Something that would be easier to create in game? Don't know what it could be, but hey, I'm young, I've got all these synapses I never use and I've got several hours in school I don't do anything. I'll try to make a game up, if y'all want me to.

(Anyway, chess was used in Neverwinter Nights. Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't a very good game, and I didn't enjoy it very much. So... yup)

Colostriph · Post by **Colostriph** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:47 pm

Stalker wrote:As simple as a chess game ??? I think you have never player chess... And actually to write a normal chess AI TES scripting capabilities is not enough. There's not arrays to say the least.

Yes, I know. And I ment a simple chess game. I wasn't stating that chess itself was simple. Just that scripting one game that no one knows if the other is going to win or not is hard. I'm not talking about a script that plays everything along and the game only goes one way, with the same moves. I mean a short game, where anything can happen, but only certain things do.

Mebentie's Service

Mebentie's Service

The Sims?