The Blursed Development "Bible" (Fallout 4) - How I Wish This Would Stop Haunting My Dreams

Here we have possibly the most embarrassing thing I have ever written and had the audacity to show other people. Believe it or not, I once thought this was feasible, and I wish I could have that blissful ignorance back. Enjoy my torment, have a good one.

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Title:

• Mass Rework (Should consider this as a working title. I think a better name could be given closer to release.)

Themes:

• Freedom, Possibility, Realism, Closure (See if this can be presented in the writing description parts of this document without explicit mentioning.)

Planned Release Window:

• January 1st, 2022 (Due to the volunteer nature of mods, one should be wary of setting deadlines, especially for large projects.)

Budget:   

• Minimum of zero dollars spent, with absolute maximum of $500 spent between all leads. (Would not even request money to start. Due to the volunteer nature of modding, things get way too complicated when money is factored in.)

Primary Development Foci:

• As a playable product, the focus should be foremost on what’s playable so I’d move Animation, Level Design, and Programming all to this tier. The 3D modeling and texturing of assets components of “Art” should be moved up to here as well, but the concept art aspect can stay secondary provided you aren’t planning on very creative and innovative designs; Mod Authors and fans will be more so excited about PR releases covering implemented assets than concept art. Voice Acting should be moved down as that doesn’t come into play until everything else is finalized.
• Writing (Dialogue, Lore, Quest), Voice Acting, Implementation

Secondary Development Foci:

•  Art, Animation, Level Design, Programming

Tertiary Development Foci:

• Music Composition, Sound FX Design, Public Relations
• You will most likely find the above focuses changing in ranking depending on production limitations and unforeseen development roadbumps.

Summary:   

• A mod for Fallout 4 that overhauls every faction in the main game, as well as adding in new factions when necessary. These faction overhauls are meant to allow all players the freedom to choose who they really want to ally with and who they want to fight against, leaving a true sense of choice and consequence. (If you are only a writer, I’d look into seeing how skilled you are at coding and Creation Kit work first. This is a very complex endeavour as far as I’m aware of.)
• The mod also includes an overhaul to the introduction of Fallout 4, as well as light changes to different aspects of gameplay. A dedicated ending with complex ending slides, certain dialogue that relies on perks and SPECIAL, etc.. (If the person you are pitching to isn’t a close friend or common collaborator, I wouldn’t mention this in case they fear you are thinking too much. These can be considered if the basic work is doable.)
• This mod, even at it’s most base level with nothing more than beginning and ending slides, is meant to give player’s a real sense that there is a complete story being told. That when the ending slides go by, and the credits roll, they have successfully beaten Fallout 4. Their choices mattered, and the possibilities for the Commonwealth’s future are endless. Closure, but also new beginnings. (This could be a good practical demo to show to the interested parties. A practical demo will always be more attractive than a written document of unproven concepts.)

Main Characters:

• The main characters in this revolve around the faction questlines, with the following characters being just a few of the main characters for their respective questlines. (When pitching characters, I’d focus less on faction affiliation/proper nouns and more on their conflicts, backstory, and personality traits. These show much more interesting subject matter than a reference to an established faction.)
• Jacqueline, an honorbound Minuteman whose trust in the world is all but lost. 
• Emily Ortal, a Follower of the Apocalypse from out west and a member of the Brotherhood Special Operations Division that the player is enlisted in. 
• Firefly, a Railroad operative working as the handler for new missions that the player is assigned within the Railroad. 
• Father, leader of the Institute and the Sole Survivor’s aging son (new voice actor and new voice lines). 
• Star Paladin Cross, a proud member of Lyons’ Brotherhood of Steel and a founding member of the New Outcasts. 
• Captain Wes, acting commander of all Gunner operations in the Commonwealth (in Colonel Cypress’ stead). 
• Loose Louis, a member of a failed Triggerman gang who sees an opportunity within the Sole Survivor - an opportunity to create the greatest gang empire that the Commonwealth has ever seen. 
• Perseus Crawford, a ship captain for the Seafarer’s Guild based out of Rhode Island. 
• Barney Rook, the last survivor of Salem and a founding member of the Northeast Minutemen and the Commonwealth Rangers.

Story Outlines: 

• An addition that could be considered is writing something similar to a season overview for a narrative series but instead of providing a list of synopsis’ for episodes, it’d be a list of synopsis’ for each main quest or story beat for each faction’s questline. Information on a season overview is readily available online. Due to the size of this project, you could also consider having the pitch focused on completing one particular faction’s overhaul first with the rest being planned if the first one succeeds.

Due to different factions being the main focus, there are multiple story outlines to be written out here. The four major end-game factions are the Minutemen, the Gunners, the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute, with the minor factions including the New Outcasts, the Railroad, the Commonwealth Rangers, the Triggermen, and the Seafarer’s Guild. Alongside these is the outline for the sort of changes being made to the vanilla game overall (story, mechanics, gameplay, and more).

• The Minutemen faction will revolve around connecting existing settlements in the Commonwealth, fighting threats to their freedom, and eventually establishing a Commonwealth Provisional Government to unite the scattered societies. The tone here is one of community, growth after loss, acceptance regardless of background, etc.. The feel good shit. The Minutemen aren’t as tight-knit as the New Outcasts, or as based in brotherhood as the Brotherhood of Steel, but they all care about the Commonwealth for their own reasons and in their own ways. There are, of course, fight between settlements and members of the Minutemen. There are quarrels, and problems, but more often than not they can be resolved through a common interest in doing what’s best for Boston.
• The Gunner questline will be very reminiscent of the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves’ Guild questlines from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with the quests being focused on completing contracts, bounties, and other mercenary-related tasks throughout the Commonwealth. The Gunners do whatever they agreed to do, regardless of the fate of the contract holder, and will actively seek ways to recruit new people into their ranks when possible. The tone for the Gunners is one similar to the Thieves’ Guild from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or a less family-oriented version of the Mandalorian culture from Star Wars. They’re contractors; everyone works for themselves, and gets paid when the job is done. There are Gunner companies that work together to take on larger jobs, but everybody is in it for themselves above all else. You need to feel like you’re part of a real-world contracting company, more or less; a place where you are doing what’s best for you, while working alongside other people who are also doing what’s best for them.
• The Brotherhood of Steel faction will revolve less around the Institute and more around the problems that the Brotherhood is dedicated to solving - mutants, raiders, technology, and expanding their influence. The Institute comes into play, of course, but as more of a consistent background plot up until the last act of their questline. The tone of the Brotherhood should be one of family. Connection and loyalty to those within your team, with loyalty and connection to the rest of the Brotherhood seeming secondary. I know that isn’t how the Brotherhood operates, but the vanilla Brotherhood questline had the player act more as a consultant who does all the work rather than part of a real military unit. The point of this tonal shift is to change that.
• The Institute faction will revolve around scientific and academic achievement. Quests to prototype new plasma weaponry, quests to discover space-age materials, quests to recover data from Project Safehouse, etc.. Another main theme for them, aside from science and education, is the acquisition of information. Multiple Institute quests and plot threads should be around the impossibly large amount of information that the Institute has on the Pre-War and Post-War worlds. The tone of the vanilla Institute honestly fits really well; cold, calculated, and designed for efficiency rather than comfort.
• The New Outcasts questline branches off from the Brotherhood of Steel main questline, and revolves around establishing themselves in the Commonwealth, learning about the presence of X-01, exploring the wasteland, protecting innocents at no cost, etc.. The tone here should be reminiscent of the tone back in the Citadel in Fallout 3: everyone knows each other, very tight-knit group, almost claustrophobic given the fact that they’re struggling to survive in this wasteland while still maintaining their moral code.
• The Railroad is, unlike in the main game, now a minor faction. This was done due to the fact that the Railroad just doesn’t have strong enough motivations and plans for the Commonwealth; their questline leaves the fate of the Wasteland entirely up to chance, as they definitely aren’t up to the task of defending everyone. As a side faction, their quests are now much more focused on the secretive aspects of their organization. Establishing safehouses, looking into lost synths and old safehouses, truly infiltrating the Institute, and creating a settlement in the Glowing Sea for synths are all the sort of quests that this new Railroad has in store. The tone here is much darker, as the consequences of failure in a situation like the Railroad’s should seem very dire. One slip-up can cost lives, so missions should feel like the sort of thing you don’t want to fuck up.
• The Commonwealth Rangers questline revolves around the player gathering a select group of skilled individuals from across the Commonwealth, bringing them to Salem, and (with the help of Barney Rook) establishing a highly-trained reconnaissance group out of Salem that can watch the Commonwealth for any early signs of threats that may endanger its people. The tone here is strange, because the best way I can describe it is the feeling you get when you discover something really cool and mysterious. That feeling of exploration, discovery, and purpose for a greater cause is what I’m imagining with this group.
• The Triggermen side faction revolves around the player creating a modern-day mafia. That’s basically the gist: the player fights other gangs, absorbs groups that fit their MO, charge fees for protection, the works. You’re building an empire of gangsters and drug lords. The tone is very heavy-set with dark humor, lots of violence, tension and extravagance. In my head right now, it’s inspired by the sort of Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto style of chaotic, highly-skilled organized crime.
• The Seafarer’s Guild is an extremely minor faction, really only serving as a bit of extra worldbuilding around the Post-War maritime landscape and to set up potential for future quest mods. The questline revolves around claiming piers and harbors for the group, setting up trade hubs around these harbors so that sea trade between the Commonwealth and the outside world can occur, as well as looking into maritime mysteries and treasures out in the waters on the east side of the map. The tone here is something I don’t quite have a grasp on just yet. This one is really up to interpretation, iteration, trial and error, and ultimately a decision made by the whole team. Maybe don’t include it at all, who knows.

The changes made to the main game outside of the factions themselves go as follows: an entirely new introduction, including a new intro cutscene, new narrator, an extended prologue, and a new setup to Shaun’s kidnapping in the vault; new and diverse ending slides to account for the different choices made throughout the game, with a definitive ending rather than a sandbox following the final quest; an overhaul of NPC level-scaling, legendary enemy scaling and spawn pools, enemy respawn conditions, with loot leveling and spawn conditions; the addition of perks being utilized in dialogue to give players more incentive for playing the way they want; and more, if it’s warranted.

Gameplay:

    Goal:

• The player is playing this mod to provide more options and opportunities when it comes to roleplay, in a way that doesn’t throw lore or common sense to the wind with impossible scenarios that would never happen. (Could give an example that’d show the above that may appear in the mod.)

    Player Skills:

• The player will need skills in deductive reasoning, basic decision-making, and decent shooting within the Fallout 4 engine. If I’m being honest, there isn’t much that players need, since it’s meant to tie everything up near the end anyway. If the player doesn’t understand something or doesn’t catch the hints early on, the end might be more shocking or out of the blue, but the hints and build-up are there. (Could give an example that’d show the above that may appear in the mod.)

    Mechanics:

• The game mechanics within Fallout 4 are, for the most part, sufficient for this mod. The radiant quest system can be used the same way as in vanilla, with minor differences (the Minutemen won’t use radiants until all the quests for already-inhabited settlements are completed), with the addition of the Gunner contracts utilizing the system (aside from main contracts), the Commonwealth Rangers group utilizing it for mapping out the Commonwealth (radiants will end once every location in the Commonwealth is discovered), the Triggermen using it for selling drugs and protection services to different settlements, and the Seafarer’s Guild not using it at all.
• Aside from the radiant system seeing greater implementation, the mechanics of leveling, scaling, and spawning will be looked into as to how they can be improved or changed. I am personally unsure how this will work, as the idea is simply that - an idea. This document can be updated to reflect any team decisions to move forward or back off on those fronts. (It’s worrying when the project lead for a playable product indicates they don’t know how to make an idea playable. I’d figure it out, not mention it, or describe it more in depth in writing terms. The team will be relying on you as both a technical and creative lead.)
• Also, the implementation of perks in dialogue. In the vanilla game dialogue, which is left untouched for the vast majority of characters, the player’s perks will very rarely come into play. But for the new characters and revoiced characters, designing certain choices based on the logical perks that the player could have at that point will be a focus, if only a minor one.

    Challenges:

• The player will, throughout this mod, be faced with multiple choices that can affect the game in a variety of ways. Some choices mean nothing, while some choices mean everything. The choice of which factions to follow, which factions to make enemies with, and who to trust will come down to your own beliefs, values, and logical reasoning. There is no definitive “right” choice - every group has positives and negatives, with some effects of siding with a group only manifesting much later on.
• For example, siding with the Brotherhood of Steel. Yes, they provide the most protection to the Commonwealth in the short term, but they’ll eventually have to return to the Capital Wasteland. The Brotherhood’s main fighting force can’t stay in foreign territory forever while their home suffers, which means the work that the player puts in to help the Commonwealth may be all for nothing in the end. The same sort of long-term vs. short-term logic applies to each faction and each ending, meaning that there is no one path to rule them all.
• The way that the player progresses in these questlines mostly comes down to simply finishing the quests. It sounds stupidly easy, but that’s because the actual system for progressing is designed that way. There is no level-gating for the majority of the quests, with the most gating of any kind coming down to having certain main quest milestones be completed before the next stage of faction quests will unlock and progress.
• The only faction with additional gating for unlocking extra content comes with the Gunners, as they have a ranking system in which each main contract includes optional objectives that may result in more or less progress being made towards the player’s next rank within the Gunners. Complete all optional objectives in every main quest, along with a hefty helping of radiant contracts and side quests, and you can finish the game with a very high rank within the Gunners. If you don’t complete any optional objectives and you pretty much just do the bare minimum to survive, then you’ll end the game with a low-to-medium rank within their organization. It’s a logical thing: do no work, get no reward. Do all the work, get the most reward.

Visuals:

• New assets and visuals need to be kept to a minimum. Unless a mod author has given permission for us to utilize their mod catalogue, or we use modder resources, the number of in-house assets must be as low as possible. We could spend years dumping thousands of hours into unique assets for every little thing, but we don’t have to. The quests are improving upon the vanilla game, which provides the benefit of not needing tons of new assets and graphical improvements. (This is nice to hear. A lot of time can be saved by just utilizing vanilla assets.)

Music and SFX:

• New music and sounds may be warranted for pivotal story moments throughout the questlines, as well as to enhance the new feeling of the brand new factions that are added into the game. The music and sounds are, of course, allowed to be derivative of previous game soundtracks depending on the context and style. New music is to be handled on an entirely case-by-case basis, as it is much less of a strong focus and more of an atmosphere enhancer.

Technical Description:

• The mod is intended to be highly modular, allowing players to decide exactly which parts they want to have active and which parts are unnecessary for their circumstances. For that reason, there will be modules released on Xbox One for each faction, as well as for the gameplay and early plot changes listed above. If the Xbox One 2GB mod space limit allows for it, an all-in-one may be released as well, giving players on Xbox the full story experience. PC will obviously receive the full release, with (hopefully) MCM support to boot. If that isn’t achievable, then a modular release similar to Xbox is the next best bet. (I have a feeling that the scale of the mod wouldn’t work on console. It’d be best to develop without console in mind so your team isn’t hampered by limitations.)

If any part of this mod is to be released on PS4, it will only be the parts that affect leveling, scaling, legendaries, loot and such. Everything else includes new assets, rendering it unportable to PS4. (I don’t believe PS4 would work with as complex of a mod.)