The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim – Enderal-Mod played – excellent service from the fans!
While Bethesda has its hands full with Fallout 4, the mod team SureAI from Munich is working on a RPG highlight for Elder Scrolls and Skyrim fans.
A few days ago, we received a far progressed version of the mod project Enderal. At the moment, the game is in closed alpha for quality control and bug fixing. The ambitious modders aim to create a first-class RPG, which must not hide from full prize titles – that they certainly can do so was already proved by their excellent mod for Oblivion,
Nehrim – The shards of order.
We alreday showed what Enderal is about in our hands on article last year, now we have our first hands on video for you. It contains spoiler-free content from the very first hour of the game, which will take over 100 hours to finish if you want to discover everything and do all side quests.
Details from role play and skill system
In character creation, you’ve the choice of four different races: Half-Aeterna, Half-Kilene, Half-Arazeale and Half-Qyrane. Each of them features unique characteristics like the Half-Aeterna, for example, who are exceptionally good with magic. The three main attributes health, stamina and mana work the same way as in Skyrim but you’ll have a fourth attribute in Enderal due to story reasons: arcane fever. Everytime you cast spells or drink potions, the fever gets worse. Magical places and objects have a bad influence on it, too. The dangerous fever can be lowered by consuming appropriate antidotes like Amrosia. As a result, spell casting in Enderal gets a tactical depth Skyrim never had – casting spells randomly hurts your character! The skills in Enderal are organized in nine skill trees – called memory trees – which are divided in three groups according to the classical roles in RPGs (warrior, mage and rogue).
- Magic trees: Elementalism (ice, fire and shock magic), Thaumaturgy (magic of the mind and light magic) and Sinistra (shadow and psi magic)
- Rogue trees: Espionage, Vagabond and Trickery
- Warrior trees: Blade dance, Bastion and Rage
Each of these three groups contains a basic talent, which links to its memory trees. In total, every memory tree offers 15 talents, which can be increased in three stages. Talents are acquired and increased with so-called memory points, which are unlocked during the game. You can spend these points in every way you like, resulting in a huge amount of possible talent combinations.
The resulting class is composed of the two memory trees you have spent the most points on. Some trees are especially compatible with each other. After investing at least 10 memory points, a special class is unlocked. Hints for these talent combinations can be found throughout the game world.
Additional important changes and new mechanics in Enderal
Learning points: These points are gained by leveling up. You need them for reading lecture books, which increase combat skills. Such books are hidden in the game world and can be bought from the distinct skill masters.
Crafting points: You get these points for each level-up, too. You can read crafting books with, which increase your crafting skills.
Combat skills
Psi (Sinistra): Magic for manipulating and controlling enemies
Entropy (Sinistra): Summoning magic
Elementalism (Elemental): fire, ice and shock magic
Mentalism (Thaumaturgy): creating magic shields, manipulating doors and locks
Light magic (Thaumaturgy): healing, increases resistances and bans undeads
One handed (Blade dancer): Skill with swords, daggers, 1hand-axes and maces
Parry (Bastion): dictates the damage you take while blocking
Heavy Armor (Bastion): dictates the armor value of heavy armors
Two handed (Rage): dictates the damage with two handed weapons
Long-range combat (trickery): dictates the damage with long-range weapons
Light Armor (Vagabond): dictates the armor value for light armors
Sneak (Espionage): enables malicious attacks and helps staying undetected
Crafting skills
Crafting in Enderal requires special blue prints, which can be found and bought. Same deal for the resources. There are 6 crafting skills:
Alchemy (Vagabond): potions (healing, stamina, mana, poison etc.)
Pickpocket (Espionage): take what you need from the NPCs
Lock picking (Trickery): opening closed chests and doors
Enchanting (no memory tree necessary): dictates the handling of magical items – the higher your skill, the stronger your enchantment
Blacksmith (no memory tree necessary): dictates the complexity of your forged items
Rhetoric (no memory tree necessary): enables alternative solutions and dialog options by persuading NPCs and acquiring additional information
We’re waiting for Enderal
The clever role play system, the weighty combat and mainly the excellent story make us yearn for the release of Enderal. But SureAI is working on its baby only in free-time, so it will take some time till it’s finished. Maybe in spring 2016?
Who’d like to support the team can do that by using the donation option on their website.
The translation was a little but rushed and might need some polishing in some sentences, but everything is included and should be understandable. If you find some major issues, please contact me via PN.
SureAi stated on a couple of occasions that they are aiming for a release in the first half of 2015. According to them, they have pretty professional workflows with a specific "road map" with set milestones for the development, and if everything works out as anticipated, Enderal will see the light of day in the first or second quarter of 2015. They won't give out a fixed release date though, to not raise any expectations they might not be able to fulfill. As it is always possible to run into some unexpected problems, or that some of their members can't contribute as much as planned for some private life reasons. In the end they are still a modding team which relies on purely voluntary work.
