My side project: A Gangs of New York mod

Wanted to let everyone know about a side project I started, currently in the "let's see what I can tinker around with without breaking the ga--oh fuck I just broke the game I sure wish I knew what I was doing" stage.

"The Bloody Ould Sixth," a nickname for Manhattan's Sixth Ward in the mid-19th century, home of the infamous Five Points slums and such colorful gangs as the Roach Guard and Dead Rabbits.

http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php?topic=68899.0

I'm not a tremendous fan of Scorsese's movie but I like the aesthetic and love what the setting can offer a mod: crooked politicians, burgeoning industrialist empires and plucky young rascals just trying to make it in the streets. It will be mostly historically based, set in 1865 after the death of Lincoln (and, in my story, the two other targets of the plot, the vice president and secretary of state) and featuring as many historical characters as I can cram in such as Boss Tweed, Josph Pullitzer and Ned Kelly. In my research I've uncovered a lot of astonishing and not-to-be-believed things -- did you know that before the Civil War, New York's mayor Fernando Wood wanted the city to secede and become the Free State of Tri-Insula? Or that he was forceably dragged out of city hall and arrested by the state-appointed Metropolitan police, who clashed for months with his own city Municipal Police to the point where they ignored criminals and only beat up on each other? Or that Antonio Lopez da Santa Anna lived in New York just after the war and invented Chiclets gum? I couldn't make this stuff up!

I've been working on a scale model of Lower Manhattan for a map, and some nice waistcoats and handlebar mustaches for clothes.





And a large pic of how the map is plotted out so far:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2563/3694583392_76bb900961_b.jpg

If this interests you please give the TW forums thread a visit and if nothing else wish me luck, I am gonna need it.

Best of luck to you Alan, and if you want some dialogue or anything in my range of capability, please say. Mason

That is awesome Alan... nice work.

Best of luck in this..

Saxondragon

Mason wrote:

Best of luck to you Alan, and if you want some dialogue or anything in my range of capability, please say. Mason

Some companion dialog would be a huge help. I spent all day tinkering with Wings3d till it stopped working (I get an error report whenever I try to save anything anymore) and writing the chargen options.

Here are some of the companions I have so far. (I don't even know which Python files deal with their names, clashes or dialogs.) You might have to do a bit of research on some of them to come up with a plausible explanation for why they're in NY in 1865, but most were former soldiers so that's plausible. A few are a little less than plausible... but the nicknames I have listed are, allegedly, real. And judging by their backgrounds, personality clashes should be pretty evident.

Santa Anna (as I mentioned, he was in exile in NYC)
Lafayette Baker (Union spy who helped catch Booth but was later disgraced)
Kid Blink (Organizer during the newsies strike)
Thomas Byrnes (NYC detective who clashed with Teddy Roosevelt)
"Gentle" Annie Etheridge (Union nurse)
John "Liver-eating" Johnson (storied mountain man and Civil War veteran who had a vendetta against the Blackfoot for 25 years)
Ned Kelly (Australian bushranger who constructed a suit of armor for his standoff with the police)
"Wild Rose" O'Neal (Confederate spy)
Joseph "Joey the German" Pullitzer (Union soldier, among other things, before beginning his newspaper empire)
"Battlin'" Jack West (prizefighter and detective [and incidently Mae West's dad])
Adam Worth (famous bank robber and "bounty jumper")

edit: So that's 11. Any suggestions for five more, to replace all the Native companions?

Alan, I will consult the husband, whose specialty is American History of of that period. I am sure we can flesh out the rest - you want 20, I assume? Would you like Santa Anna to swear in espanol? (I can.)

Just mild stuff like "sangre de dios" or "leche de su madre" not "chingado" or "chingadase."

Love the chiclets bit - could have fun with that. He could also drop remarks on his problems in Texas.


In terms of women npc's, these come to mind:

Pauline Cushman, an actress, who was also a Union spy who was offered money to toast Jefferson Davis, was caught with incriminating papers and escaped hanging by only three days. She used to dress as both a white man and disguise herself as a black man to smuggle papers. She subesquently became a Union nurse after her unmasking as a spy.

Elizabeth van Lew was an abolitionist living in Richmond, VA, who actually managed to place a spy in Jefferson Davis' household and also provided clothes and money to the occupying Union army.

Mary Edwards Walker was a surgeon/physician who very unconventionally dressed in men's clothes and served as a doctor during the Civil War (known in Virginia as "the War of Northern Occupation.")

Until the wave of immigration from Italy, etc. in the mid-19th century, all the gangs, of course were Irish, so I assume you'd like a slightly Irish tone to things?
Probably some mention of the Irish Potato Famine would be appropriate as a reason for the young Irish gang members' presence.

Wasn't Ned Kelly the Australian Jesse James equivalent?

Oh, I know who else you can use, too: PT Barnum and Jenny Lind, if you like. It was in 1850 that PT Barnum signed his first contract with Jenny Lind. He bought the New American Museum. Barnum also made a wax figure of Jefferson Davis wearing his wife's petticoats when he tried to escape capture and called it the "Belle of Richmond." Barnum also hired that giantess lady, whose name escaped me,

George Aikin's stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin opened in New York's National Theater in 1853. In 1859 Darwin published the Origin of the Species and you could possibly have him lecturing in New York. There is also the 1863 Draft Riot which happened in New York in protest against Lincoln's conscription law.
In 1866, Henry Bergh founded the SPCA.

Oh, and don't forget the World's Temperence Convention, in New York in 1853 - Susan B. Anthony was there, but not allowed to speak because of being a woman.

If 1848 is not too early, there is the first Gold Rush, too.

There is also Robert Cobb Kennedy, a Confederate officer who escaped from a Union prison and tried to burn down a lot of New York Buildings including Barnum's Hippodrome, in 1864. He could be a rather dashing npc.

Edit: John remembered the giantess, she was Anna Swan, the Nova Scotia giantess - can you mod a giant or a midget? If so, there is also Tom Thumb.

Let me know if any of these possible npc's appeal to you, also when you have it more or less together, may I have a short draft of how you see your characters behaving/speaking?

So, an update: shaping up nicely. Mason's been a powerhouse for dialogs and stuff, freeing me to tinker around inventing new items and learning how to do some modeling, vertex animation and that sort of thing.

I'm fairly happy with my old-timey fireman helmet.


And I figured out how to make a working scabbard and bow-type items. Such as slingshots.


Anyone want to give me a hand with music? Even if you can just suggest a source for free-use 1860s American music.

Alan:

Check your e-mail! I found exactly what you need, specifically 1875 vintage, great sound, and copied the "please let us use your music" e-mail to you as well as sending you the link. F

Does anyone know anything about rigging horse-like-items, specifically a completely non-horse item like a penny-farthing bicycle?

I don't, but I know who does. HokieBT managed to turn galloping horses into smoothly gliding speeder bikes for his Star Wars mod. Just the trick you need for your bicycles

I think it involves removing all the relevant animations for horses, effectively neutering them. I'm not looking to replace, only add. Someone rigged it for me just along the lines of a horse and, despite a few hiccups, it works well enough. Looks damn cool too.

Roughly halfway done. Here's another teaser:

Ay, Caramba!

Some privy door and a meat cleaver! Just the two things to make my day! The colour of the hat band is a bit gay though, could you possibly do anything about that or is it just the picture? Reminds me of some Milka choclate paper.

There's a fudge-ton of hats so you can have your pick. But yeah maybe that's not quite the best shade of purple.

More shots and discussion in the TW thread:
http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,68899.0.html

But here are a couple, showing clothing and hats, knives, offhand parrying knives and cleavers, and a harpoon gun:

Ay CARAMBA!!!!

The cleaver guy with his sabre and awesome hat is it. Definetly what you want to see and have in close combat

Here's a first for any mod:

Oh man, it´s getting better all the time! You´ve got the standard Irish Bowler hat with lucky charm as well? That would fit that barrel outstandingly! I can already see me runnign around barreled, bowlered and with two meat cleavers. Friggin hell. Once you need a betatester just whistle and I´ll run there drooling!

AlanQSmithee wrote:

Here's a first for any mod:

aaaand there's my armor. I shall be known as the barrel terror.

It's attached to the hat, since I figured making an actual torso armor/shirt would deform the barrel too much when you move. So instead it just kind of moves around and your body clips a bit/moves right past it. But it beats what I imagine the alternative to be.

Someone suggested I make it the default clothing whenever you lose a fight.

What? Thats too awesome for a humilation shirt! But make two or three sets of it please, especially if it´s attached to the hat which should be either grey or black or a gayish red. The turquise rope would look better if it looked like actual string and hempen color. And no attached trousers, just bare feet!

I reckon this barrel will become the absolute favourite of anyone with a sense of humor - and switch the label according to the faction, like Irish Whiskey for the Irish, Pickled Herrings for the English and probably Ale or Wine for the Natives.

Not a bad idea. I'll make a variation or two, and with different hats I guess. Not gonna overdo it though, there's a lot of silly stuff in here already. You see my rat-related items?

Not yet - please post a screenie

Lot more shots in the TW thread, but here's a couple:
Guns and new (animated, though poorly) caravan map icon:


And among our weaponry of rat-related items are such elements as fear, surprise, dead rat clubs, throwable dead rats, and cute little rats who like to chillax on your tophat:

The colt is nice but I am not sure wether the Colt Army Model was already around in 1865 or not. Who cares. You´re sure that fat rat isn´t the after-battle snack for that chap? The percussion pistol looks awesome! Tally ho matey! You´re inventing a gaily white-blue-striped sailors outfit as well?

I've got a mishmash of historical realism and historical license. I painstakingly researched crime figures and hangouts of the place and period, then threw in some things that weren't invented for another 20 years (pennyfarthings and slingshots). Way I see it, it's just some of those things you'd expect to see. Like, if you were making a Wild West game you might throw in the Pony Express, even though it didn't even last a single year.

I keep meaning to make a sailor's outfit. It's on my list. And the percussion pistol is based on the Philadelphia Derringer with which Boothe shot Lincoln.

Ravenheild made me an Apache Revolver. Look it up, that shit is nasty.

Thats the thing with the brass knuckles as handle and the jackknife next to the barrel? Talk about a smartass weapon and you get it Everything you need to cause pain, hit, slash or shoot