By Jim Rossignol on July 6th, 2011 at 5:08 pm.
Crikey, The Elder Scrolls IV: Andoran, which is a Russian-language Oblivion mod, is looking splendid and, more importantly, a bit mad. Spotted by the chaps at PC Gamer, the mod’s trailer (which you can see below) reveals a more visually interesting world, and the game’s site boasts that it has a “non-linear plot”.
It also says this: “What would it be, if the time went mad? Meeting your own self, talking rats, intertaining fleas, live cheese and horses walking on the sea is what a player will face in the Axis, one of the games areas. But things are not as they seem, the matters will become clear after a while and logic, though unusual, will replace the madness.” I don’t know what that means, but it sounds AWESOME. Go watch the trailer. I mean it.
The game is apparently “slated for the second half of 2011.” But it’s not clear if that will just be in Russian.
I rather like the Russian voiceover, though, so it might be cool to play with subtitles, as I did with The Witcher 2.
Mother Russia – the heralds of a new PC gaming.
report
The iron curtin decends and with it comes mods.
GLORIOUS MOTHERLAND
report
★★◎Something unexpected surprise
[ w w w . j o r d a n f o r w o r l d . c o m ]
very good web,believe you will love it.
exquisite watches shirts,bags,hat and the decorations.We have good reputation, fashion products,
favourable price.
—FREE SHIPPING,accept paypal
report
GLORY GLORY *random t-shirt shop advert here* GLORY TO MOTHERLAND! lol
report
great first post lol
report
Stuck inside of Memphis in a mo-bile home, sing:
Mother Russia
Mother Russia
Mother Russia rain down down down
Mother Russia
Mother Russia
Mother Russia rain down
report
The horses walking on water…… nice
report
did that in oblivion vanilla, water walk spell. eh :)
report
WANT! Any idea whether there’ll be an english translation / subtitles?
report
Hmm, it’s not clear from the site, but I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be at least a fan-made translation.
report
Well, in one of the youtube comments it is officially said that there will indeed be the English version.
report
@Jim, kinda like a mod for a mod? A meta-mod.
report
umm, from their youtube video description:
>English info: http://www.andoran.com/indexen.html
>There’ll be the English version of Andoran.
report
@Ondrej: You must be new to TES IV modding. I am sure this great-looking one will at the very least get mod-mod-mod-mods made for it.
report
There are loads of mods for mods when it comes to Bethesda games, ’tis the modding way.
report
There also happens to be a thread on the english ES forums regarding this mod http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1107446-andoranwip/
report
lhzr: where do you think I got that quote from? Doesn’t say there will be English version of it, though.
report
You can get English subtitles by starting the video then clicking the CC (closed captions) button in the YouTube player.
report
@Dartt
I don’t think that would work in the game…
report
Russians have made many interesting games though many of them are buggy they arent lacking in ambition and imagination. Also I hate myself now for not getting oblivion from steam sale (I had a copy of Oblivion but I traded it away long time ago)
report
This thing is one of the most amazing stuff I have watched lately, I don’t know if it will turn out in a great game, but the trailer alone is good enough to show there is a crazy and untapped world for videogames to explore.
report
Those are some incredible production values.
Sadly, the engine is horrible. Easy to do modding with, but absolutely horrendous when it comes to running. I’m playing some Oblivion now and then, not because, but despite the engine.
report
I can’t help but agree. I recently compared Morrowind, with the Morrowind Graphics Extender (and sea foam!) versus Oblivion with similar things going on, and high res texture packs for both.
I was amazed at how much better looking Morrowind came out.
In Oblivion, the graphics tend to be chunky. Comparing Morrowind and Oblivion is like comparing an Amiga with a C-64. And the people are… pug ugly, even face-modded. And the excessive use of bloom and normal-mapping (PLASTIC, ALL IS PLASTIC, EVERYTHING SHALL BE PLASTIC) make it even worse.
So I agree. It’s a fantastic little mod, but the engine holds it back.
report
@Wulf
Morrowind and Oblivion run on the same engine. NetImmerse and GameBryo are the same engine, the latter is simply the “new” name for the former.
That said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and i wouldn’t really want to go without displacement mapping at least. Morrowind and Oblivion have very different styles aswell.
report
Exactly, Wulf. I can’t play Oblivion any more. I’m not one to care about graphics, but dear god, it really is horrendous looking.
The mod looks incredible. Absolutely ridiculously good.
The Morrowind parts look amazing, and I’m very glad to see them.
I will play this in Russian if I have to.
report
Well….it would certainly make me consider installing it again.
report
Well, this is worth learning Russian for, I suppose.
report
also for pathalogic
report
I think I like pathologic the broken way more.
report
Hah, russian is a trainwreck to learn as a second language, the amount of rules, exception to the rules and just bits that don’t make any sense is obscenely absurd. I should know, it’s my first language.
report
There go our plans of making Russian the global language. Well done, CaspianRoach.
report
Yes, I would love to learn Russian for the same reason.
Shame it’s a bitch to learn though. You should set up an RPS “learn Russian” club.
Then I could play Metro and Stalker in Russian, and I might have a chance of knowing what’s going on in Pathologic.
report
What I’ve learned of Russian makes it seem rather complicated. More cases than German, and to top it off you have to learn all the case declensions for every noun. Yikes. German only has a bit of that, and keeps the declensions restricted to the articles and adjectives.
report
But the typography is so pretty!
report
mmnnnnnn
I want to speak elvish like these guys.
report
I heard the Morrowind music and saw mushroom trees!
report
And the bloom… the bloom… D:
report
Looks fantastic. It’s neat that there are people out there going this far with modding. Especially when there’s little to no profit from it… in fact, they probably lose money from projects this large.
The interesting thing is that this almost looks as good as Skyrim, though I’m sure there are some serious performance hits, and it’s hard to say how open the world is just from the trailer. Honestly, it’s amazing what you can get from just throwing a few shaders into the mix
Edit: Dwemer Ruins at 1:13.
report
“I rather like the Russian voiceover, though, so it might be cool to play with subtitles, as I did with The Witcher 2.”
I sure hope you didn’t play The Witcher 2 in russian, though.
report
Hated it mostly for the indescribably dull Geralt’s voice, myself.
report
No, I played The Witcher 1 in Polish.
report
In Soviet Oblivion… :(
report
Upon retweeting this story, I had to cry out SOVIET OBLIVION!. So thanks for that.
report
Surreal Russian trippyness aside, this looks pretty mega. The production values are bang tidy and I love the Morrowind vibe to it!
report
This looks great. Looks like a well thought out project.
I still feel guilty for not having played Nehrim yet. It’s been sitting on my HD waiting for me.
report
Could this be the first video game appearance of Horace the Cheese?
report
Looks great. This should definitely be worth trying out as long as there’s subtitles available. I’d prefer that to an English dub, I think.
report
Yes, this, utterly this. It’s what the Elder Scrolls Construction Set has been crying out for. Ten bravos in a row.
report
I’ve been doing some minor mods in CS. You can’t do shit like this in it. Just the limitation of the function calling in vanilla CS is bloody horrendous. And the engine cannot do the things displayed in the trailer. Obviously they have tweaked some of the source code of the game.
report
Kent, have you installed the script extender (don’t remember the name of the Oblivion one, but a bit of Googling should bring you to it)? It adds a lot of basic scripting functionality missing from the vanilla CS.
I think it’s hilarious that even Bethesda’s modding tools have to be modded before they’re up to par. Gotta love ‘em, though.
report
Not so much the prettiness, which is impressive, or, say, the animations, or the amount of NPCs on screen, its the inventiveness, the architecture, the design of the landscape. Its just dripping with imagination, kind of exactly what Oblivion was lacking.
report
Actually I somewhat agree with Kent, when I was watching some of the sequences it seemed pretty unlikely that the Gamebryo engine would be able to do some of this at an acceptable framerate. I have a suspicion that some elements are pre-rendered, the lighting looks far too good and the animation far too fluid in some sections. Pretty sure the environments are all in-game though.Scripting sure extends a lot of core functionality, but it doesn’t fix problems inherent with the engine itself.
report
Reckon I know what I’ll be playing while waiting for the price of Skyrim to fall.
report
Reckon I know what I’ll be playing while waiting for Skyrim to release
report
Like.
report
First watched the clip and then read the text.
I thought this was an official addon. Heck, it looks better than I’d expect of an official addon.
report
I am looking more forward to this then skyrim.
report
The more and more I hear about Skyrim, the more it causes my opinion of the game to fluctuate. This just looks straight up awesome. And I so want Skyrim to succeed, but the more they say about it it sounds like they’re removing features to accommodate for the consoles restrictions, like no armour customisation etc.
I’m not angry about the whole thing, but these would be nice features and it’s a shame they’ll be missing
report
They just made the hauberk and greaves into one big piece. How that helps ‘accessibility’, I don’t know, but hey. that’s what they did. And no, everything else is the same.
My personal feeling is that Bethesda is treading the line between simplification and oversimplification very very carefully. They’ve seen/know what can happen when the hardcore crowd feels alienated, so they do not want to do that. But at the same time they know a lot of ‘casual’ gamers played Oblivion, so they want to make it as freshman friendly as they can. Hopefully they’ve done a good job.
report
From the official website “In Andoran you can bind and carry away almost every character after having him knocked senseless or paralized.”
So that’s the game anti-gaming senator Leland Yee was talking about. That makes his argument even less valid though, as this isn’t really a game, but more of a very complex, total-conversion mod with tons of additional content.
But still, glad that’s finally been cleared up.
report
Let me try to translate it for you, guys. I’m not sure, if it is absolutely correct, so please, tell me, if i wrong.
- Empire of Tamriel falls.
- Old rulers, who are still loyal, dies. And new ones, who are not always pleased with state of things, comes to their place.
- Their displeasure doesen’t matter. In Breach of the Dragon even time lose it’s importance.
- Empire mages lost control. And this failure can cost us too much. As we haven’t enough problems…
- Vampire hunters want to make money on our problems. Lets see, if they can hold rivers of blood. Immortality on the stakes.
- Immortality?
- Not only vampires. Some of dunmers believe that their gods aren’t gone and still has their power. And they will fight
- And what’s in the end?
- I don’t know. There are many variants. Too much.
report
Thanks, but pressing the CC button enables english subtitles :)
report
It’s always a little embarrassing when the fans manage to make a better game than the original with the mod tools. Although these guys went a bit further than that: they appear to have imported and improved the Morrowind assets.
report
Looks really good, definitely getting a Morrowind vibe, why aren’t these guys just making a proper payab;e game then a mod. I would bloody buy it!
report
Nehrim was pretty good. This looks better. Definitely going to give it a shot.
report
I don’t see any gameplay demonstration, just a bunch of cinematic story stuff.
Maybe you’ve grown accustomed to seeing a lot of movie+story stuff and thinking ‘game,’ but that isn’t what a game is.
report
There are quite a few shots of gameplay, but since this is an Oblivion mod you should probably already know how it plays.
report
I said today I wouldn’t pay €5 for Deus Ex 3. OTOH, I could pay €40 for that one. This is so inspired and exciting !
report
Looks great but I’d be very surprised if there weren’t tons of assets taken from other people’s mods.
report
Is it just me, or does this look prettier than Skyrim?
report
Looks awesome!
Btw, in the slight off chance that people don’t know about it, but likes mods for Oblivion, check out Nehrim, which is possibly better than the original Obilvion (Once you get out of the starter dungeon, that is)
http://www.nehrim.de/indexEV.html
report
I wonder how much post-processing the trailer got, since a lot of this stuff just isn’t possible via the ordinary modding process through which most mods are made. I at least saw several new animations and probably some advanced new shaders. I’d be pretty excited if they implemented all that in the original game… and are not having it crash every 5 minutes as usual with this kind of modification.
report
I can almost guarantee you that they were using Oblivion Graphics Extender and various shaders in that trailer. The water, SSAO and sunshafts are all a part of that. Most likely a texture pack as well. Qarl’s Texture Pack III in all likelihood. The Indoril Armor near the end is from another mod.
This is also part two of a mod trilogy. Part 1 “Axis” is already available. They added some beautifying mods to make it all look better in the trailer. Everyone can do that to Oblivion right now. So don’t be blown away with the graphics and think that all of that’s only possible because of their mod.
Still this mod does look very interesting.
report
This russian voiceover is so overly dramatic it’s even kinda good.
report
I might just play this instead of Oblivion. I kinda liked Morrowind, bought Oblivion on a recent sale, and I guess it seems that Oblivion isn’t as… imaginative or something.
report
Check out the Shivering Isle expansion for Oblivion. Adds a lot of what felt missing in Oblivion.
report
Oh… oh god. Those crazy russians, they’re really something. Expanding on the fantastic concept of “Dragon Break”, the idea that all various twists in Tamriel’s history all can happen at the same time, that the timeline eventually vows all of them together… the amazing paradoxes.
Ordinators and Dwemer ruins, FUCK YEAH! This mod looks ridiculously amazing.
report
Russian modders making Bethesda look bad.
report
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.
report
Never got Nehrim working, but I’ll definitely give this a look. Wouldn’t mind playing in russian, as long as I can get subtitles.
Also just read you can knock people out with unarmed? Finally, a use for that skill!
report
Huh.. you always knocked people out with unarmed.. it did stamina damage.
report
I rarely bother with mods for anything, but I’ve wanted an Elder Scrolls game set in the Black Marsh for a long time. Looks awesome.
report
Забавно, что я узнаю о русском моде с нерусского сайта :) Но спасибо за новость
report
Incredibly interesting, you can also find an interview here: http://www.rpgitalia.net/news/oblivion/andoran-the-interview/
report
It’s too far fetched. The made-up language, the craziness, I don’t believe in these “Russians” you speak of. Such a land as this “Russia” could never exist, and the technology to create it in a game doesn’t yet exist.
report
Sweet! Give me some English subs and I’m ready. Like the sound of the Russian voices
report
Since I know Russian, I can say that it sounds and looks impressive, but a little vague. Empire collapses again. Mages are out of control. Vampires are seeking for immortality. And Dunmers believe that their gods are still full of energy. “And how can it all end?” – asks the voice at the final of the video. “I do not know. A lot of options.” – In response.
As for me the appearance of this mod is brilliant. I confess, I think Morrowind one of the best games ever existed. I am glad that someone took the trouble to give us another ticket to the wonderful world of Tamriel. Oh, Bethesda, I beg you to turn to Morrowind ways and forget the Oblivion ones.
report
IDK. It looks great, but then so did Nehrim. Nehrim’s poor translation (and, in certain parts like books, lack of translation) ruined it for me. I couldn’t get invested in the world, and gave up after five or six hours.
report
So it’s Oblivion with Russians?
report
So…. based purely on this trailer and the skyrim trailers…. I have more faith in these guys than bethesda. I mean I am excited about skyrim a lot but this was exciting, fresh and interesting. And the aesthetic style was what I was basically expecting oblivion to look like before it came out. They’ve done an incredible job by the looks of it. If there are subtitles I will definitely get it!
report
Can I just say this about the original Oblivion: I have been replaying it again and all I can say is that it is a completely and utterly awesome game. It takes a lot to hold my interest in a game these days but Oblivion is just outrageously addictive. I say this and I’ve still yet to touch the main campaign missions beyond closing the Kvatch gate at the beginning. I don’t know when I’ll have the time to try out these mods because I have yet to set foot in the Shivering Isles or try out the Knights of the Nine expansions.
report
Shivering Isles is better than most of the original Oblivion. Definitely check it out.
report