09-14-2007, 02:02 AM
Mini-story with picture links...otherwise just skip down for an impressions report.
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind!
Today I decided to go to Morrowind. I had gotten tired of constantly wandering about Cyrodiil and wished for a small change in scenery. Had I known how far and long it would take me, I might have gone by horse...maybe. After a long trip following a winding road I finally arrived in the province, or area for the lack thereof. At first I wasn't really impressed in much. But giving it a few minutes I finally did realize that it at least wasn't Cyrodiil anymore. And nothings better than realizing that! It was much too dark to continue until morning, so I decided that I would sit under the stars enjoy a good book. Why not just sleep you ask? Well everytime I do I feel slightly different. It's such a wierd feeling that I've only slept 20 hours during my entire stay in Cyrodiil. I find that simply resting my eyes and body seems to do the trick better than full blown sleep anyhow. Morning did eventually come, and against my better judgement I ignored a certain Dunmer near the gate. Which of course leads to the inevitable fact that I always seem to get lost...Always.
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind! Part 2!
I must have traveled for quite some time when a very peculiar event seemed to occur. I found that looking in one direction seemed to cause my head to hurt and make the world move extremely slow around me. I realized almost imediately that it was my travelers intuition telling me there was quite a big city nearby! And was there ever! Soluthis & Reich Parkeep! And the first thing I see is Dunmer! I guess since it is the land of the Dunmer that I can't be too surprised. Of course I was no fool, and I knew to conversate with people to learn about things. After all, knowledge is power, especially when everyone knows more about the place you are at than yourself. I found a individual or two with a sense of wearing a cape too, although they were quite simple to mine in comparison. But considering how much people seem to hate capes in general, I found it surprising that someone was wearing one at all. Being a learned fellow, I knew that a bookstore would hold untold wealth in written word. It was a quant place, but they could've done something about the decor. I tried to talk to one of the bonemold armored guard fellows, but she seemed to pay no mind to me. Quite a pity. My travel to this place had not only gave me a thirst for knowledge, but an actual thirst and hunger to boost. So I did what any respectable citizen would do, I stepped into the nearest bar and quenched it! My whole time in the city wasn't all fun though. Apparently someone or something had it out for one of the khajiit of the city. I later was told she had discovered a flaw in the rope section of the bridge above and ran/dived to her death by accident. Poor Khajiit. Speaking of the bridge above, it connected to parts of the Reich, and I decided to spend time at one of the bars/inns there. I also decided to Visit a weaponstore, but the owner didn't really have anything that interested me at the moment. I did discover Another place to get me some more drink, and I will say that it was quite nice to be drinking someplace new for a change. I finally visited the Keep itself, but it was apparently being renovated from top to bottom, save the winery of course. So I just took a few new photos with a gift my family had gotten me last Solstice that allowed me to do so!
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind! Part 3!
Soluthis & Reich Parkeep was quite fun while I was messing around there, but decided that it was time for me to go after the 3rd day spent there. Leaving during the night, and with actual directions this time, I headed away from Soluthis & Reich Parkeep and made for Steadhelm. For quite some time I believed I was lost again, since the wilderness seemed to fade from wild to undeveloped. I finally knew I was right when Steadhelm Bridge finally came into few! Although Walking on the bridge towards Steadhelm took a bit longer than I though it would! I took a break from traveling to Mess around on top of the Bridge watchtower! Surprising the two guards didn't seem to mind to much. They were apparently quite peeved at being selected to watch over a bridge that no one ever travels over. Poor fellas. Well they might be bored there, but I wasn't going to be bored where I was traveling to, because it was Steadhelm! My intuition didn't kick in as bad here for some reason, which was all better for me. Once again the first thing I saw in the city was More Dunmer. The city was quite large, but nowhere near as large as Soluthis & Reich Parkeep was. Which was definately good for me since I wasn't able to get badly lost. Although it did take some time for me to find a good place to rest. And I think we all know by now just the place I like to relax in!
I explored the city a bit more, and upon talking with a few people and checking a few maps I investigated, I realized there really wasn't any other big places for me to explore yet. Some story about unknown Daedra 'painting and unpainting the world' making the world basically incomplete in parts. I figure the place will eventually be painted enough but until then I decided to simply return home and continue my adventures there.
==============================================
I hope you guy's enjoyed the story a bit. It's taken from my test run of Silgrad v2.5. I got to say my first thought was on how huge the land was. I know you guys say it's big, but it isn't until you are actually in-game that you realize just how small your character really is in the new worldspace. In the future I hope plenty of land will mean plenty of new places/dungeons to explore. You guy's certainly have a big enough mold to craft, and I hope it gets crafted good. From visiting the few places that do exist, things do seem to be made well. Especially the bars!
I do have a few gripes though. The lack of even the most rudimentary Worldspace map is a big turnoff. It could've been something as simple as a mspaint outline, but anything would've been greatly appreciated. Especially for the off the beaten path types like myself. I hear this might be included in v3.0 so that definitely be a plus then. Another gripe is with the whole slowdown at Soluthis & Reich Parkeep. I've read that it's caused more by textures, but for me it seemed to be the VWD objects, as the only reason I found the place when I first started was because looking in the city's direction slowed my framerate quite a bit when I was within a certain distance. I would say make it a closed city to improve framerates, but with the spells you plan on implementing I don't think that would be a good plausible Idea. I think the only other really big gripe was that some of the distant mountains look a bit warped, but I would figure from a conversation with Lightwave that this is from bluring the landmass texture. And also my direction markers didn't seem to appear on the Local map for the worldspace at all, except when in interiors.
All in all I really like where this mod is heading, even if it is taking quite a while to get there. I can't wait to play further versions with much more content added to it. Keep it up guys!
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind!
Today I decided to go to Morrowind. I had gotten tired of constantly wandering about Cyrodiil and wished for a small change in scenery. Had I known how far and long it would take me, I might have gone by horse...maybe. After a long trip following a winding road I finally arrived in the province, or area for the lack thereof. At first I wasn't really impressed in much. But giving it a few minutes I finally did realize that it at least wasn't Cyrodiil anymore. And nothings better than realizing that! It was much too dark to continue until morning, so I decided that I would sit under the stars enjoy a good book. Why not just sleep you ask? Well everytime I do I feel slightly different. It's such a wierd feeling that I've only slept 20 hours during my entire stay in Cyrodiil. I find that simply resting my eyes and body seems to do the trick better than full blown sleep anyhow. Morning did eventually come, and against my better judgement I ignored a certain Dunmer near the gate. Which of course leads to the inevitable fact that I always seem to get lost...Always.
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind! Part 2!
I must have traveled for quite some time when a very peculiar event seemed to occur. I found that looking in one direction seemed to cause my head to hurt and make the world move extremely slow around me. I realized almost imediately that it was my travelers intuition telling me there was quite a big city nearby! And was there ever! Soluthis & Reich Parkeep! And the first thing I see is Dunmer! I guess since it is the land of the Dunmer that I can't be too surprised. Of course I was no fool, and I knew to conversate with people to learn about things. After all, knowledge is power, especially when everyone knows more about the place you are at than yourself. I found a individual or two with a sense of wearing a cape too, although they were quite simple to mine in comparison. But considering how much people seem to hate capes in general, I found it surprising that someone was wearing one at all. Being a learned fellow, I knew that a bookstore would hold untold wealth in written word. It was a quant place, but they could've done something about the decor. I tried to talk to one of the bonemold armored guard fellows, but she seemed to pay no mind to me. Quite a pity. My travel to this place had not only gave me a thirst for knowledge, but an actual thirst and hunger to boost. So I did what any respectable citizen would do, I stepped into the nearest bar and quenched it! My whole time in the city wasn't all fun though. Apparently someone or something had it out for one of the khajiit of the city. I later was told she had discovered a flaw in the rope section of the bridge above and ran/dived to her death by accident. Poor Khajiit. Speaking of the bridge above, it connected to parts of the Reich, and I decided to spend time at one of the bars/inns there. I also decided to Visit a weaponstore, but the owner didn't really have anything that interested me at the moment. I did discover Another place to get me some more drink, and I will say that it was quite nice to be drinking someplace new for a change. I finally visited the Keep itself, but it was apparently being renovated from top to bottom, save the winery of course. So I just took a few new photos with a gift my family had gotten me last Solstice that allowed me to do so!
- Ryu's Trip to Silgrad Tower/Morrowind! Part 3!
Soluthis & Reich Parkeep was quite fun while I was messing around there, but decided that it was time for me to go after the 3rd day spent there. Leaving during the night, and with actual directions this time, I headed away from Soluthis & Reich Parkeep and made for Steadhelm. For quite some time I believed I was lost again, since the wilderness seemed to fade from wild to undeveloped. I finally knew I was right when Steadhelm Bridge finally came into few! Although Walking on the bridge towards Steadhelm took a bit longer than I though it would! I took a break from traveling to Mess around on top of the Bridge watchtower! Surprising the two guards didn't seem to mind to much. They were apparently quite peeved at being selected to watch over a bridge that no one ever travels over. Poor fellas. Well they might be bored there, but I wasn't going to be bored where I was traveling to, because it was Steadhelm! My intuition didn't kick in as bad here for some reason, which was all better for me. Once again the first thing I saw in the city was More Dunmer. The city was quite large, but nowhere near as large as Soluthis & Reich Parkeep was. Which was definately good for me since I wasn't able to get badly lost. Although it did take some time for me to find a good place to rest. And I think we all know by now just the place I like to relax in!
I explored the city a bit more, and upon talking with a few people and checking a few maps I investigated, I realized there really wasn't any other big places for me to explore yet. Some story about unknown Daedra 'painting and unpainting the world' making the world basically incomplete in parts. I figure the place will eventually be painted enough but until then I decided to simply return home and continue my adventures there.
==============================================
I hope you guy's enjoyed the story a bit. It's taken from my test run of Silgrad v2.5. I got to say my first thought was on how huge the land was. I know you guys say it's big, but it isn't until you are actually in-game that you realize just how small your character really is in the new worldspace. In the future I hope plenty of land will mean plenty of new places/dungeons to explore. You guy's certainly have a big enough mold to craft, and I hope it gets crafted good. From visiting the few places that do exist, things do seem to be made well. Especially the bars!
I do have a few gripes though. The lack of even the most rudimentary Worldspace map is a big turnoff. It could've been something as simple as a mspaint outline, but anything would've been greatly appreciated. Especially for the off the beaten path types like myself. I hear this might be included in v3.0 so that definitely be a plus then. Another gripe is with the whole slowdown at Soluthis & Reich Parkeep. I've read that it's caused more by textures, but for me it seemed to be the VWD objects, as the only reason I found the place when I first started was because looking in the city's direction slowed my framerate quite a bit when I was within a certain distance. I would say make it a closed city to improve framerates, but with the spells you plan on implementing I don't think that would be a good plausible Idea. I think the only other really big gripe was that some of the distant mountains look a bit warped, but I would figure from a conversation with Lightwave that this is from bluring the landmass texture. And also my direction markers didn't seem to appear on the Local map for the worldspace at all, except when in interiors.
All in all I really like where this mod is heading, even if it is taking quite a while to get there. I can't wait to play further versions with much more content added to it. Keep it up guys!
