04-12-2006, 01:14 AM
Cyrodiil has problems; that much has become evident to even those of us who do not own the game. For one thing, the leveling system for creatures, NPCs, and loot is way out of whack. For another, the NPCs have much less dialogue and the Dunmer don?t have gravelly voices. Finally, the scaling is just terrible in terms of adding anything, forcing those of us who want to mod other provinces to either spoil immersion by making our areas huge in comparison or minimize our work by cutting out entire towns.
The leveling system is being fixed in a ton of different ways by the larger modding community, and virtually any type of player can find what they?re looking for. Perhaps the dialogue will also be boosted by modders. It?s the last problem that is wrecking havoc with our plans and the plans of other communities like TR and probably the mysterious Dwemer guy. Until a consensus is reached about scale for our mods, no map work can proceed, and until the map work proceeds, nothing except perhaps a few town interiors can be made (i.e. Reich Parkeep).
So, what can we do about it?
When I first heard the idea of rescaling Cyrodiil, I was highly skeptical. I mean, it sounds like it?d be a ton of work, and it wouldn?t even really give us something new like the Silgrad area, Vvardenfell, Black Marsh, or any of the other provincial mods would. Moreover, I immediately thought of all the tons of good mods that would doubtless be incompatible, things like the creepy Dark Brotherhood expansion (the one with the weird role-playing modders who are always talking about Sithis and the Night Mother), and even little building mods or expansions by Bethseda.
But I?d ask you not to think about those for a moment and take an open look at the situation. Right now, most of us can do no real modding. We have no models for the game except Imperial, no new armor, no new weapons, and the custom models that we do have cannot currently be used with the physics system. We cannot even make our maps until a scale is agreed upon, and that?s assuming that we don?t need added features there like textures and plant models that don?t yet exist. And so all we do is plan, and while planning is certainly very necessary, I wonder if we cannot accomplish something in the meantime.
If we, as a joint project of Silgrad, Blacklight, Vvardenfell, Skyrim, Black Marsh, Elswyr, and Valenwood all undertook to ?fix? Cyrodiil, think of the resources we would have.
1) Plenty of manpower. Even if you take out those of us who can?t mod, there are combined between us a ton who can, and some of them are extremely skilled.
2) Lore. The original game already takes place in Cyrodiil. We know the locals, the regions, everything.
3) Models. We have all the architecture, armor, weapons, plants, items, and clothing that we need already produced and functional with the physics engine.
4) Finished portions. Even if we rescale, we already have completed interiors, functional NPCs, quests, and items. A lot would need to be ?cut? and ?pasted,? but the actual scripting would be moot. (Simply a matter or reassigning door links)
That?s all fine and well, you may say, but how do you plan to go about this? It?s a big project and making a total conversion of Oblivion could take a long time.
Again, I?m not talking about a total conversion. Much of Oblivion would be retained, basically everything except the exteriors. Adapting from an earlier suggestion in one of the forums, I suggest one or the other of the following plans for attack:
1) Begin with the landmass. When it is complete, link the existing cities and interiors into it. After that, take the cities on one at a time, leaving as much of the layout intact as possible for compatibility, but expanding the perimeters with new areas, especially in the Imperial City. When this is complete, add in additional tweaks like settlements and localles neglected by Bethseda that now fit in the increased space between cities.
2) Begin with the cities. Leave the exteriors and landscape intact, but beef up the internal content of each major city. Strive to keep the locations as consistent with the original game as possible to prevent compatibility problems with other mods, but add new areas to the cities, especially the capital. When the interiors of the cities are done and teaming with life, not necessarily quests, move on to the outer landscape, where we make the exteriors of the cities match the improved worldspaces within. Then, as in option 1, move on to include new locations in the expanded wilderness (farms to feed all the people of Cyrodiil, more ruins, small settlements, etc).
It should be noted that I favor option 2, because people are more likely to pay attention to a mod series of small mods that beef up the cities than a single large one that expands terrain. However, the idea behind both schemes is to change as little as possible while still accomplishing our goal. The motivation behind the order of the steps is simple: increased publicity and usage. If we release our mod between each major segment of development, it will retain compatibility for the most part with other mods (either in supporting new landscape locations or new intra-city locations). As our mod is embraced by the public, especially the Elder Scrolls purists and Morrowind buffs out there, modders will likely join us to help, and modders doing their own thing are more likely to provide compatibility with our work if they have something to use.
And now for the obvious objections:
Q: What do you do about the maximum size for a worldspace?
A(1): So far, I?ve thought of two solutions. The first is to subdivide Cyrodiil using an ancient wall (dating from some lore-based war) combined with natural barriers. There would be several access points to cross this divide and these would link as doorways into the other section of the province. I imagine that this divide would likely run roughly north/south along the river and eastern side of the Imperial City?s lake, then up into the mountains. Most Main Quest areas would be kept on the western side of the barrier, preventing any hassle to the player. The eastern side could also easily encompass a handful of new locations on the Argonian and Morrowind borders if we so desired.
A(2): The second solution, and the one that I favor, is to cut out some of the excess terrain around the perimeter of the Cyrodiil map. As you can see from the images at the bottom of this post, I have attempted to place the new borders in ways that should keep the illusion of more land intact. For instance, the northeastern edge of the map will occur at a point where the Hammerfell coast turns north and inland, meaning that the outcropping is completely visible still and blocks the view of nothingness beyond. Similarly, in the east, I have placed the projected border at the edge of the Velothi Mountains, meaning that they should naturally cut off the view of anything further. To the southwest, the inward curve of Elswyr functions much the same as Hammerfell?s coast did, and in the southeast, Argonia tapers away in the same fashion that it did in the original game. The only weakness that I can see in the new border is that the ocean ends quite close to shore in places, but perhaps we can mask this with mist of some sort, especially on the southern edge of the map.
Q: What scale do we use for Cyrodiil then? You haven?t solved the issue at all!
A: Using my projected map, we could effectively increase Cyrodiil?s size by 1/3. I have heard that Cyrodiil uses a 1:12 or 1:15 scale and that Morrowind used a 1:9. If this is true, then a 1/3 increase should put us in the range that we want. It might not be perfect, but it would be close enough to eyeball for the most part, and any inconsistencies in scale should be too minor to notice.
Q: This is too big an undertaking. It?ll never get done.
A: That, I think, depends on us. Maybe it is too big a job, and maybe we?d be better off just working on our individual mod projects for the provinces. But, again, there isn?t much that our mod teams can do right now as it is. The modelers can model, the non-game-owning planners can plan, but there are a lot of people who are waiting, and we might as well see if we can accomplish something while we wait. Who knows? Maybe it?ll be easier than we think. Maybe if we release a revision of the Imperial City or Anvil, we?ll get a wave of new members who will gladly help speed this along. Maybe we?ll be able to set a new precedent in modding, the total revision of the original game the way the hard-core, lore-centric fans wanted it to be. Maybe we?ll find ourselves having produced the greatest ?must-have? mod for Oblivion. But we?ll never know if we don?t give it a shot.
So, bottom line: Big project, but probably the most helpful thing that we could do for all of our provinces while we wait for more editing capabilities. Also quite possibly the biggest publicity boost that we could give our community, and at the same time (for such a massive undertaking) surprisingly light on specific requirements. Everything we need to do this already exists, folks! So I would encourage you to weigh the possibilities, look at the present situation, envision the future, and then get moving on this. I don?t think that we?ll regret it if we do.
The leveling system is being fixed in a ton of different ways by the larger modding community, and virtually any type of player can find what they?re looking for. Perhaps the dialogue will also be boosted by modders. It?s the last problem that is wrecking havoc with our plans and the plans of other communities like TR and probably the mysterious Dwemer guy. Until a consensus is reached about scale for our mods, no map work can proceed, and until the map work proceeds, nothing except perhaps a few town interiors can be made (i.e. Reich Parkeep).
So, what can we do about it?
When I first heard the idea of rescaling Cyrodiil, I was highly skeptical. I mean, it sounds like it?d be a ton of work, and it wouldn?t even really give us something new like the Silgrad area, Vvardenfell, Black Marsh, or any of the other provincial mods would. Moreover, I immediately thought of all the tons of good mods that would doubtless be incompatible, things like the creepy Dark Brotherhood expansion (the one with the weird role-playing modders who are always talking about Sithis and the Night Mother), and even little building mods or expansions by Bethseda.
But I?d ask you not to think about those for a moment and take an open look at the situation. Right now, most of us can do no real modding. We have no models for the game except Imperial, no new armor, no new weapons, and the custom models that we do have cannot currently be used with the physics system. We cannot even make our maps until a scale is agreed upon, and that?s assuming that we don?t need added features there like textures and plant models that don?t yet exist. And so all we do is plan, and while planning is certainly very necessary, I wonder if we cannot accomplish something in the meantime.
If we, as a joint project of Silgrad, Blacklight, Vvardenfell, Skyrim, Black Marsh, Elswyr, and Valenwood all undertook to ?fix? Cyrodiil, think of the resources we would have.
1) Plenty of manpower. Even if you take out those of us who can?t mod, there are combined between us a ton who can, and some of them are extremely skilled.
2) Lore. The original game already takes place in Cyrodiil. We know the locals, the regions, everything.
3) Models. We have all the architecture, armor, weapons, plants, items, and clothing that we need already produced and functional with the physics engine.
4) Finished portions. Even if we rescale, we already have completed interiors, functional NPCs, quests, and items. A lot would need to be ?cut? and ?pasted,? but the actual scripting would be moot. (Simply a matter or reassigning door links)
That?s all fine and well, you may say, but how do you plan to go about this? It?s a big project and making a total conversion of Oblivion could take a long time.
Again, I?m not talking about a total conversion. Much of Oblivion would be retained, basically everything except the exteriors. Adapting from an earlier suggestion in one of the forums, I suggest one or the other of the following plans for attack:
1) Begin with the landmass. When it is complete, link the existing cities and interiors into it. After that, take the cities on one at a time, leaving as much of the layout intact as possible for compatibility, but expanding the perimeters with new areas, especially in the Imperial City. When this is complete, add in additional tweaks like settlements and localles neglected by Bethseda that now fit in the increased space between cities.
2) Begin with the cities. Leave the exteriors and landscape intact, but beef up the internal content of each major city. Strive to keep the locations as consistent with the original game as possible to prevent compatibility problems with other mods, but add new areas to the cities, especially the capital. When the interiors of the cities are done and teaming with life, not necessarily quests, move on to the outer landscape, where we make the exteriors of the cities match the improved worldspaces within. Then, as in option 1, move on to include new locations in the expanded wilderness (farms to feed all the people of Cyrodiil, more ruins, small settlements, etc).
It should be noted that I favor option 2, because people are more likely to pay attention to a mod series of small mods that beef up the cities than a single large one that expands terrain. However, the idea behind both schemes is to change as little as possible while still accomplishing our goal. The motivation behind the order of the steps is simple: increased publicity and usage. If we release our mod between each major segment of development, it will retain compatibility for the most part with other mods (either in supporting new landscape locations or new intra-city locations). As our mod is embraced by the public, especially the Elder Scrolls purists and Morrowind buffs out there, modders will likely join us to help, and modders doing their own thing are more likely to provide compatibility with our work if they have something to use.
And now for the obvious objections:
Q: What do you do about the maximum size for a worldspace?
A(1): So far, I?ve thought of two solutions. The first is to subdivide Cyrodiil using an ancient wall (dating from some lore-based war) combined with natural barriers. There would be several access points to cross this divide and these would link as doorways into the other section of the province. I imagine that this divide would likely run roughly north/south along the river and eastern side of the Imperial City?s lake, then up into the mountains. Most Main Quest areas would be kept on the western side of the barrier, preventing any hassle to the player. The eastern side could also easily encompass a handful of new locations on the Argonian and Morrowind borders if we so desired.
A(2): The second solution, and the one that I favor, is to cut out some of the excess terrain around the perimeter of the Cyrodiil map. As you can see from the images at the bottom of this post, I have attempted to place the new borders in ways that should keep the illusion of more land intact. For instance, the northeastern edge of the map will occur at a point where the Hammerfell coast turns north and inland, meaning that the outcropping is completely visible still and blocks the view of nothingness beyond. Similarly, in the east, I have placed the projected border at the edge of the Velothi Mountains, meaning that they should naturally cut off the view of anything further. To the southwest, the inward curve of Elswyr functions much the same as Hammerfell?s coast did, and in the southeast, Argonia tapers away in the same fashion that it did in the original game. The only weakness that I can see in the new border is that the ocean ends quite close to shore in places, but perhaps we can mask this with mist of some sort, especially on the southern edge of the map.
Q: What scale do we use for Cyrodiil then? You haven?t solved the issue at all!
A: Using my projected map, we could effectively increase Cyrodiil?s size by 1/3. I have heard that Cyrodiil uses a 1:12 or 1:15 scale and that Morrowind used a 1:9. If this is true, then a 1/3 increase should put us in the range that we want. It might not be perfect, but it would be close enough to eyeball for the most part, and any inconsistencies in scale should be too minor to notice.
Q: This is too big an undertaking. It?ll never get done.
A: That, I think, depends on us. Maybe it is too big a job, and maybe we?d be better off just working on our individual mod projects for the provinces. But, again, there isn?t much that our mod teams can do right now as it is. The modelers can model, the non-game-owning planners can plan, but there are a lot of people who are waiting, and we might as well see if we can accomplish something while we wait. Who knows? Maybe it?ll be easier than we think. Maybe if we release a revision of the Imperial City or Anvil, we?ll get a wave of new members who will gladly help speed this along. Maybe we?ll be able to set a new precedent in modding, the total revision of the original game the way the hard-core, lore-centric fans wanted it to be. Maybe we?ll find ourselves having produced the greatest ?must-have? mod for Oblivion. But we?ll never know if we don?t give it a shot.
So, bottom line: Big project, but probably the most helpful thing that we could do for all of our provinces while we wait for more editing capabilities. Also quite possibly the biggest publicity boost that we could give our community, and at the same time (for such a massive undertaking) surprisingly light on specific requirements. Everything we need to do this already exists, folks! So I would encourage you to weigh the possibilities, look at the present situation, envision the future, and then get moving on this. I don?t think that we?ll regret it if we do.